


The Egg of Time

by AeAyem



Category: Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
Genre: 36 Lessons of Vivec, Mortal Almsivi, cw: abuse (physical/emotional/sexual), cw: childbirth, cw: csa, cw: gore, cw: intersexism, cw: various. read at your own discretion, cw: violence, literal things interpereted metaphorically, metaphorical things interpereted literally, pre-resdayn, pre-war with the nords
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-28
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:27:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 57,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22933300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AeAyem/pseuds/AeAyem
Summary: In which Almalexia gains a throne; Sotha Sil loses a House; an egg becomes Vivec.
Comments: 36
Kudos: 73





	1. Chapter I

**Author's Note:**

> CONTENT NOTICE: This story deals heavily with themes of abuse, in various forms. Please be advised of this. Check tags for specific content warnings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTE: This is a rewrite of a much older fic, and an interpretation of the 36 Lessons of Vivec. See end of this chapter for author's notes.

* * *

_1E397, Rain’s Hand._

_He was born in the ash among the Velothi, anon Chimer, before the war with the northern men._

* * *

  
  


Ash fell like snow over Mournhold the day Almalexia’s mother died. 

Outside the window of the healer’s room of Mournhold’s palace, flecks of grey fell silently past the glass. Almalexia followed their descent with her eyes, while nearby her mother’s breaths turned from shallow, to laboured, to finally not there at all. She didn’t tear her gaze away from the window until the door creaked open, and a guard took her gently by the shoulders and lead her out of the room.

Sotha Sil was waiting for her outside, but Almalexia hardly noticed him as he took her into an embrace and murmured “I’m sorry” against her shoulder. Word was already spreading that the Queen was dead; the hallway was slowly filling with silent Chimer in ceremonial robes, mourners and officials and priests alike, all grimly silent with heads bowed. In the long weeks since the Queen had fallen ill, the entire nation had watched with breathless anticipation; now that she was finally gone, they were impatient to get her funeral over with so that grander schemes could be set in motion. A queen’s death always brought opportunity, after all, and the Velothi loved the schemer Mephala to a fault.

Almalexia allowed her childhood friend to steer her away from the crowd and through the long palace hallways, out into the courtyard, where a funeral procession was already assembling. “You shouldn’t have come here.” she muttered to him as he lead her to her place in front of the mourners. “The Jarl has been planning this for months. Things might become dangerous.”

“House Sotha is the largest banner-house of Great House Telvanni,” Sotha Sil replied simply. “You should understand that. We’re both heirs.” 

Almalexia laughed, without humour. “Heirs? You truly think Chemua’s going to let me take my mother’s throne? Gods, Sil, I’m so… I’m scared. I’m really scared.” 

“They’ve done nothing for a century. It will be okay.” 

“Yes, but mother was alive. She could always rein them back. What’s to happen now she’s gone? Skyrim is still at war, and Chemua is not above slavery or forced enlistment if it suits him. Who knows what he’ll do?”

“Ayem…”

Their conversation was interrupted by the slow creak of the palace's vast doors. Three priests emerged, each clad in the robes of the Three Good Daedra, and shortly behind them followed the freshly animated corpse of Almalexia’s mother. She’d been dressed in the appropriate ceremonial garb before they’d ‘resurrected’ her, and her skin was caked in makeup to hide its sickly pallor, but she now walked with a tell-tale stiffness and her head sagged to the side. Sloppy conjurers, Almalexia thought. 

Suspended by the magic of the priests, the corpse shuffled past them, through the broad palace courtyard and south towards the plaza beyond. Sotha Sil tugged on Almalexia’s sleeve, and with the same mindlessness of her mother’s corpse she began to walk. 

Such it was that the procession, lead by the newly-dead, began its solemn crawl into the city proper, where tearful citizens had assembled to bid their benevolent ruler farewell. Nowhere else would an entire city be permitted to attend a funeral but in Mournhold; though its queen was Indoril by birth and tradition, Mournhold had been a city-state before the Nords came, and its rulers were beholden only to their people, who they loved and guarded with no heed to House politics. Like its sister, Ebonheart, it had been spared from ruinous House warfare for many a century by this custom. Its people knew this and were grateful of it, and they could not be barred from flooding the city to mourn the loss of the monarch that spared them from neighbor and invader alike. 

Though, as they made their sluggish way through the streets, Almalexia felt the crowd’s emotion was less like sadness and more like fear. 

The ash-storm had thickened, causing occasional muffled cause to pierce the otherwise reverent silence. As they went on, particularly devout citizens would attach themselves to the end of the funerary procession, so that the length of it slowly grew as they crept from one district to the next. Above the heads of the living the ghosts of the dead flitted like bats. The ancestors of the Velothi remained with them always, and now they made their painful way to the corporeal world, to comfort their descendents in this time of tragedy. Even the dead were mourning, it seemed.

By the time the procession reached the temple-tomb of House Indoril the air was almost too thick to breathe. Here the priests drew to a halt, so unexpected that Almalexia nearly bumped into the mer in front of her. Horrified murmurs erupted amongst the procession as the source of this delay was revealed; a single Nord stood cross-armed before the ghost-gate, glaring unfazed at the scene before him. 

In the end it was Almalexia who stepped forwards, pushing aside her mother’s corpse as she moved to face him. “Jarl Chemua,” she said, her voice calm, “You’re disrupting my mother’s funeral. Step aside.” 

Chemua didn’t move, but inclined his head towards the corpse. “That crown,” he replied, and the ground stirred beneath them as he spoke. “Make sure it burns with her. I have no use for puppet-queens in my city.” 

Almalexia made to retort, but Sotha Sil stepped forwards, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her back with a soft warning hissed against her ear. Chemua turned and stalked off. 

Only members of House Indoril were permitted to enter the temple grounds, so the procession dwindled drastically as they resumed their passage through the bone-lined gates. Inside of the glowing ghostfence lay a small and barren garden, strewn with the bones of skeletal protectors that even now regarded the living with leering eye-sockets. The temple fringed by the garden was simple, wrought not from Mournhold’s trademark lilac stone but from the simple shell-and-mud used by the earliest of Veloth’s pilgrims to craft their first buildings. The interior of the temple was dominated by a low-ceilinged and circular chamber, from which so many stairways stretched down into the earth like roots. 

Here the priests departed with a bow. Only Almalexia, the direct descendent of Mournhold’s royal line, could enter the chambers that housed the queens of old. She was left alone with the mother, or the withered stiff-legged corpse that had once been her mother; she took a deep breath, cast the thing a wary glance, and began the descent. 

The Velothi communicated with their ancestors often, and would habitually seek their assistance in matters both grave and trifling. Almalexia herself had made this journey countless times before, forced by her Indoril relatives to carry on the tradition even under foreigner occupation, and no matter how she felt about the custom, her ancestors were no strangers to her. They were present now: spectres and skeletons that pressed close from the shadows and whispered amongst themselves as their heir guided her mother down a steep, narrow stairway. “Ayem,” they murmured to her. “Boethiah.” She did her best to ignore them. 

At the bottom of the stairway lay a small room dominated by a wide pit of ash that served as the final resting place of royalty. Almalexia’s mother seemed to know this on instinct, for her corpse marched dutifully into the pit, while Almalexia drew to a halt at its edge. She exhaled; the corpse slowly turned around and fixed its eyes on her. 

Something about that stare made her suddenly want to retch. Almalexia raised her hands and hastily began the dispelling ritual. 

“Do not forget the crown,” whispered one of her ancestors against her ear. 

Almalexia ignored them, focused on the gestures of her hands, the chant and magika that would release soul from body. 

Some ghost to her side heaved a weary sigh. “Boethiah, Boethiah, are you so fearful, so weak?”

“So cowardly, so powerless,” agreed another ancestor in a rattling whisper. 

“What has become of our line? What will become of our city?”

“Take the crown.” 

“She’s too weak, she won’t.”

Their murmurs drove her unease until it became unbearable. Almalexia did away with tradition all-together, changing the magika in her palm into an unceremonious fireball, which she flung at her mother before spinning to face her ancestors.

“I can’t take the crown,” she told them. “The Nords won’t permit it.” 

“Disappointment,” sighed an ancestor. “A failure to our line.”

“Be silent!” Almalexia snapped. But her childish insolence-- she was barely twenty, and they had lived for centuries-- only goaded them, and their murmurs became more scornful, more derisive, louder as they closed in on her. 

“She is scared. Weak. Look at her.”

“Cowardly. Feeble.”

“Like cattle, only useful as a wife.”

“The Nords will kill her, all the better.”

“Oh, Boethiah…” 

“I can’t!” Almalexia’s cry echoed around the small chamber. “What am I meant to do?”

The corpse, which had remained standing despite being wreathed in flame, erupted, and the whole chamber was filled with searing light. When her vision returned Almalexia screamed. Before her stood a spirit, though this one was far more corporeal than any pale ghost of her ancestor, more present, more _terrifying_. He was clad head-to-toe in ebony armor, a golden sword hanging from his belt, his white hair streaming in a ponytail from his head, and even as Almalexia cowered he offered out her mother’s crown. 

“AYEM AE SEHTI AE VEHK.” His voice was loud as thunder, sweet like blood. “Wear the skin of Trinimac. Wield the hands of Mephala. Heed Azura’s knowledge. Take the crown!” 

She snatched it from his hands and fled. 

A crowd of mourners were waiting outside the gate of the Indoril ghostfence, many harbouring the devout hope that the queens of past had imparted some ancient wisdom on their young heir. When Almalexia came unceremoniously charging through the gate they scattered in alarm. She stumbled to a stop, doubling over, gasping for breath, the crown clutched tightly to her chest in both hands. The air was filled with ash, but it tasted clean in comparison to the stench of burning flesh and the rot of the tomb. She gulped it in as if she’d been drowning. 

“Almalexia!” called out a guard, rushing to her side. Sotha Sil, too, came to her side, and the rest of the crowd began to move in, eager to see what had frightened the queen’s heir so. “Serjo,” called someone, “What happened?”

With a final deep breath, Almalexia stood upright, wiping ash from her face. She looked out at the crowd. 

Countless eyes were fixed on her with unrestrained eagerness, the sort of curiosity so intense it could be mistaken for hope. She’d seen that expression in a crowd before, when she was still young, peering out from behind her mother’s back as she addressed them. How absurd it seemed to her, at that moment, that they’d look to her for guidance, the daughter of a dead queen all trembling and covered in ash-- 

But who else would they look to? Almalexia was not the only person who had lost a mother that day, she realized; the very city had been robbed of their protector. They too feared the coming wrath of the Nords, feared Chemua, dreaded the future, had been left without guidance or friend, and their expressions of grief and fear must have mirrored her own. 

So Almalexia stepped forwards, raising the crown high for all to see. “They said,” her voice rang out across the crowd, “They wish me to take the crown. They’ve told me to call a moot.”

***

In 1E240, the Nords had spilled out of Skyrim and conquered their way through Veloth with devastating success. Some attributed their victory to an unusual abundance of fortune on the Nords’ side, and others to the chronic House warfare that hopelessly divided the Chimer; whatever the cause, the result had been absolute, and within months most of Veloth (named Morrowind by the invaders) had been placed beneath the outlander yoke. They had spilled in, as was Nordic wont, from the north, and so the people of Mournhold-- then called Mourning-- were given several weeks to wait in fear as the scourge hacked and shouted its way south. 

At first it was tales that trickled in: shaggy unwashed men who could knock down walls with a word, topple mountains with a song, churn up the seas in a single sentence. Then the refugees began to come. Fear turned to panic. Many mer believed Mourning unassailable and rallied behind her walls, but many more had limped in from the north after similarly unassailable cities were ravaged, and as Great House after Great House submitted, any hope of resistance waned. By the time Ebonheart was sacked by the ancestor of Hoag Mer-Killer-- an event more massacre than battle, which decimated House Dres and saw the death of the Queen of Mourning’s husband-- the spirit of resistance was thin. Families locked themselves in their ancestral tombs in fear, cowards deserted in droves, and those that remained to man the walls wept in each other’s arms as from their posts they watched Deshaan burn and their dooms draw closer.

So the Queen had done the only thing she could do: she surrendered. The Nordic host had arrived at Mourning to find her gates flung open and her monarch waiting to greet them with a tribute and an offer. The tribute was saltrice and adamantium and a thousand wonderful things from the palace; the offer was one of vassalage, a promise that should the Nords allow her to remain queen of her city, she would be their puppet, and appease the Great Houses, and council their ‘Jarl’, and spare the Nords the otherwise tedious task of subduing a race founded on rebellion and backstabbing. This offer pleased the conquerers, so a powerful storm-caller was made Jarl of the city, the Deshaan Plains were renamed Mourning-Hold in the fashion of Skyrim, and the Queen kept her crown. 

Thus ushered in an era of relative peace among a tumultuous occupation. The Queen, true to her word, eased the tensions between occupier and occupied, and Mournhold was spared much of the grief that troubled the rest of the land.

That first Jarl was Chemua’s grandmother, also named Chemua but known as Mem-yet by the Chimer she tormented. Mem-yet had, by the Queen’s account, not been a gentle woman, and watching Chemua stalk furiously around the council-chamber, Almalexia didn’t doubt it. Clan Roaring-Heart was not known for their mercy. 

“You’re bold,” Chemua broke the silence between them finally. They were alone, in the council-chamber turned war-chamber that sat at the crown of Mournhold’s triangular palace, and Almalexia had thus been standing tensely by the window and watching the Jarl pace about like a building storm. “I’ll give you that, elf. You’re bold.” 

“The moot is Nordic custom,” Almalexia replied calmly. “When a king dies, the rulers convene to decide who should next take the throne. Mournhold is property of Skyrim. Should we not follow your customs?” 

“If you think you can sneak in and wrest power--” Chemua broke off, his words rattling the walls and threatening to break the windows; the more powerful Tongues lost control of their Voices, and Chemua’s tended to come through in wrath. 

Almalexia took the opportunity to butt in: “It’s not power. My mother had no real power and you know this. The title of queen is customary, used to offer peace to the people.” 

Chemua barked a laugh. “Right, that’s it, is it? You’re asking because you want a pretty crown.” 

“I want to protect my people. The citizens love me, but they’re terrified of you! If you made me queen, I could win their love for you, and they would be rallied to your causes, and aid you in your wars.” She stepped forwards. “How long has the succession war gone on, Chemua, thirty years? You’re already fighting your kin. Don’t fight mine as well.” 

Chemua was watching her, expression wary, and even with the spacious council-table separating them, Almalexia felt dwarfed. He was only five years her senior and perhaps a head taller, but he was well-built, handsome with long red hair and glacial eyes, and he wore the confidence of any young man who could destroy an army with his voice alone, so that he held a presence beyond his true height.

Outside night was falling, conspiring with the lingering ash-storm to drown the world in filthy black. A tiny spider dropped down from the ceiling to spin its web.

Almalexia took another step forwards just as Chemua burst into laughter. “Damned elves. You think you’re smart, don’t you, Almalexia? Hoaga was right about you.” 

“You don’t trust me.” 

“Why should I? Your kind hates us as much as we hate you.” 

“Hate your kind?” Wear the skin of Trinimac, wield the hands of Mephala. Almalexia drew herself up and caught Chemua’s eye. “Have you forgotten everything? I was _raised_ by your kind. Your stories, your customs, your language, I’ve grown up with these things. Your own father taught me to wield a sword! I… _Thuri_ , I have never hated you. I want to serve you. I’m only Chimer, so I would not ask to be your queen, but let me serve you in the way I’ll be most useful.” 

The flattery seemed to catch Chemua off guard. A red tinge appeared on his cheeks and he turned his body away from her. “Do not delude yourself! Even if I agree, the other Jarls would never lend you their support.”

“The throne is a Chimeri station, it should be voted on by the Great Houses, not the Jarls.” 

“Like dogs playing cards. What a farce.” 

“Let me ask them.” Almalexia showed her palms, helpless. “You’re right, they will probably say no, and then you may rest easy knowing you’ve honoured the tradition of your ancestors, and I will happily go away from the city and leave you to your throne. Just humour me. Let me ask them.” 

A tense silence fell between them, which was momentarily interrupted by a knock on the door. Chemua went to open it and in came the palace steward, flustered and breathless, wringing his hands. “My Jarl,” he said, bowing low, “The Grandmaster Indoril is inconsolable, demanding to know when this supposed ‘moot’ will be held, and urges me to ask…” 

Chemua cast a glance at Almalexia, withering in its coldness, but his voice was calm and even. “Two weeks from today. Set it two weeks from today.” 

Almalexia breathed a ‘thank you’ and hastily slipped past him, out the door, out of the room. Only then did she realize her heart had been racing, but over fear was nestled the warm glow of triumph. 

Later that night she sought out Sotha Sil in the room they’d given him, the tall narrow tower on the building’s western edge. The two of them stole a couple bottles of sujamma from the kitchens and snuck off to one of the unused storage rooms in the basement, where they could discuss the events of the day in relative peace. Over drinks perched on a crate Almalexia recounted the strange apparition in the tomb and her ancestors’ orders to her, while Sotha Sil listened, absorbed in silence, a troubled frown on his face all the while. 

“So a spirit appeared to you.” Sotha Sil’s eyes were averted and one finger tapped anxiously against the joint of a prosthetic leg. “And he told you to take the crown. Are you sure it wasn’t one of your ancestors?”

“None of my ancestors could have… appeared quite like that. And he was speaking in ehlnofex. The Indorils are Aldmeri stock, they only speak Aldmeris.”

“What did he say, exactly?”

“ _Ayem ae Sehti ae Vehk_.” Almalexia sighed and took a sip of her drink. “I haven’t given it much thought. I thought at first that he was listing names. You call me Ayem, I call you Sehti, but then who’s Vehk? And what does that have to do with my crown? This is all too strange, and I hate abstract things like this. As if I didn’t have enough to worry about in reality.” She glanced up, then, and frowned. “You look like you’re thinking about something. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I think nothing.” Sotha Sil’s reply was a little too hasty. “I’m just worried. This is dangerous, Almalexia. I don’t think the Nords are going to be happy about having another elf-queen in Mournhold, ancestral decree or not. I don’t want you to be hurt.” 

“I won’t get hurt, Sil. I know how to deal with them, I’ve been doing it all my life.”

“What did the Jarl say to you?”

“He’s unhappy, but he agreed to hold the moot. That must be a good sign.” 

“A sign that he’s planning something, perhaps.” 

“You worry too much.” Almalexia leaned over to pour him another drink. “Do you think we’ll ever be free of the Nords?” 

“Ah, Ayem, a moot is one thing, but a rebellion is taking it a little far!” 

“It’s not, it’s reasonable. One day we will force them out! This can’t last forever. They seem undefeatable, but the Succession war is making them weaker by the day. Chemua thinks Hoag is going to make his own claim for the Kingship once Hanse dies, and that will sever Morrowind from Skyrim. If ever there would be a time to push them out, it would be then. We must be ready.” Her mouth tightened in a wry grin. “Wear the skin of Trinimac, wield the hands of Mephala. Perhaps I can’t fight them, not yet, but I can get close to them and stab them in their backs.” 

Sotha Sil accepted the drink, and drank from it deeply before averting his eyes again, his mouth pulled into an unhappy frown. “I don’t see how that is meant to make me worry less! This is a dangerous game. You remind me of a conjurer who thinks they can outsmart a Daedric Prince, and those stories don’t have happy endings.”

“Those conjurers didn’t have you.” Almalexia extended her hand across the crate that served as her table. She smiled, gently, and her voice grew soft. “You’re right, Sil, this is dangerous, and that’s why I need your support and your friendship. Whether as my court wizard or my friend away in Ald Sotha, I’d be glad to have you on my side. You can’t change my mind, but will House Sotha support me?” 

Sotha Sil did not respond immediately; he lifted his cup, drained it, let out a long sigh, and then, as if resigned, placed his hand in Almalexia’s. “You have my support, and the support of House Sotha. I’ll see if I can’t get House Telvanni to agree, too. 

“Thank you, Sehti! Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. I’ll stand by you always, you’re my friend. And besides,” Sotha Sil smiled humorously, “You _do_ need me. You’re hopeless with theology. If you can’t recognize Boethiah when he gives you a present, you’ll need all the guidance you can get.”

***

The day of the moot was clear and sunny, with the winds blowing from the south having left Mournhold’s air warm and clear, if not a little humid. The unusual event had seen the city swell with visitors as House Councilors and their many lackeys convened, and the streets bustled with vendors, businessmen, aspiring politicians and a thousand other opportunistic souls, all eager to take advantage of the strange situation. Though the occasion was a controversial one and had been the ceaseless argument topic of many an irate Chimer in recent days, Mournhold had an air of festivity about it, a hint of hopeful optimism borne on the sun’s crisp spring light. 

In the end only House Redoran had declined to attend the moot. The other Houses revered the customs of Veloth in their own ways, of course, but they were themselves Velothi and cared less for purity or propriety than they did for the many opportunities presented to them by Mournhold’s strange decree. The summons from Almalexia had been met with surprising eagerness-- although there was some customary griping about the degeneracy of Nordic customs and the disgracefulness of it all, they had agreed to send their representatives to the meeting, eager to have a say in the future of Morrowind’s capital. 

The moot itself was held in the war-chamber near the top of the palace. The room was large and in daytime brightly-lit, its walls bearing windows on all sides, providing a clear and uninterrupted view of the surrounding city. The walls between were bare, sturdy indigo masonry rising in smooth arcs to the pointed ceiling. The centre of the room was dominated by a wooden table, large, round and ornate, elaborately decorated with carvings of dragons and eagles painting a vivid tale: swirling totem-figures depicted Kyne’s gift of the Voice, and the Nord’s glorious rebellion against their draconic overlords, the triumphant defeat of their oppressors. Almalexia could only assume the decoration had been chosen as some sort of cruel joke. 

For the occasion she had positioned herself at the head of the table, at a place where the carvings depicted a storm-wreathed woman breathing lightning onto a crowd assembled below her. She’d dressed carefully for the event, choosing something more Velothi than Nordic: a plain loincloth and a mantle of blight-moth silk to cover her breasts, a pair of ornamented adamantium pauldrons that supported a gauze scarf of Indoril blue. Her hair remained loose and her head unadorned; she had resolved, vainly, not to wear anything over her hair unless it was the crown. To each side of her stood her Shouts, members of the guild that served as Mournhold’s guard. She’d chosen them personally, they were friends of hers and she’d trained among them for years, and she trusted them unconditionally. Despite being Nords, many of the Shouts were born in Mournhold and were more loyal to the city than to the homeland they’d never seen. She’d also, of course, concealed a dagger beneath her mantle-- when murder was an acceptable political tactic, it was wise to keep protection close at hand. 

She’d ordered the Shouts outside to begin admitting Councilors at ten. Thus, when a tiny Dwemeri clock perched on the wall dinged out, the door swung open, and the deluge began. 

Voryn Dagoth, the handsome and gently-spoken High Councilor of House Dagoth, was the first to make his entrance. House Dagoth occupied the majority of Vvardenfell and were by all accounts a steadfast and sturdy House, their fraught history of conflict with Nords, Dwemer and nature itself having made them stalwart and humble both. Voryn Dagoth did not bear any signs of this tenuous existence; he was well-dressed and held himself with the aloofness of nobility, but his eyes betrayed a sort of closely-guarded wisdom. When Almalexia went to him and extended an arm in greeting he ignored it, instead dropping into a deep bow. His entourage, consisting presumably of two of his brothers for the resemblance they bore, mirrored the gesture, and then the dignified group went to take their place at the table.

The quietly dignified arrival of House Dagoth was swiftly overshadowed by House Indoril’s boisterous appearance. There were more than a dozen of them, as many as could earn a place at the moot plus their guards and servants, and each greeted Almalexia with a little too much warmth, as if to remind her that, queen or not, she was Indoril and owed them her allegiance. They were swiftly replaced with a small throng of Hlaalu representatives, none of whom Almalexia recognized, and then she found herself shaking the hand of an elderly mer who introduced himself as Sadras Suran, Grandmaster of the Redoran banner-House Sadras. The war-chamber was swiftly filling now, each House picking its seat judiciously according to alliances and rivalry, and already the chatter had taken on a decidedly scheming tone. 

“Thalthil Dres,” Two tall and road-worn mer, dressed in elaborate light armour festooned with feathers and bearing strider-leg spears, approached Almalexia. “And Dres Khizumet’e. My heir.” Almalexia bowed to them both, voicing a polite greeting of her own. It was House Dres’ presence that was most concerning to her. House Dres’ holdings were primarily in Tear and northern Argonia, safely outside of the Nordic clutch, but their House had owned Ebonheart before the Nords sacked it. That the Indorils kept its sister-city Mournhold was bitter fruit for House Dres, and there was animosity between both the cities and the Great Houses that claimed them. Thalthil Dres, the current Grandmaster, was bound to cause trouble. 

That left House Telvanni, as expected, the last to arrive. Divayth Fyr, young but notoriously insolent, gave Almalexia a brief apology when he finally showed his face, explaining away his discourtesy by saying that a companion had distracted him with an interesting theory. Behind him stood Sotha Sil and Sotha Sil’s father, Sohleh, who greeted her with a sheepish shrug and a fond grin respectively. Almalexia returned the smile to them and guided them to the last unoccupied section of the table, seating the wizards between House Dagoth and House Hlaalu. She was gladdened to have the Sothas there to offer her their support; as a child she’d spent her summers in Ald Sotha, being tutored in magic, and she considered them more of a family to her than even the Indorils were. Sotha Sil might as well have been her brother.

Thus the representatives of the six Great Houses had assembled. Almalexia took her place at the head of the table, standing as tall as she could and looking at each of the assembled carefully. Now they only had to wait for Chemua and the palace steward to join them. 

Fortunately, none of the representatives seemed too impatient to begin. It was a rare occasion that so many Great Houses were assembled in the same place, and as a result lively conversation was springing up all over. Voryn Dagoth had engaged Sotha Sil in a deep discussion; Dres Thalthil was showing a few of the Indoril guards his spear; the Hlaalu cohort were marveling over the elaborate Nordic carving in the face of the table, speculating as to its worth; Sadras Suran appeared to have dozed off. The room was filled with amicable chatter, which was nigh a miracle, given the history of warfare and bitter rivalry between all assembled. It was said that not even the daedra could make the Great Houses get along with each other, but the presence of a common enemy did wonders to make factions play nicely, it seemed. 

Almalexia exhaled and let herself relax. Perhaps this would be less eventful than she feared.

The chatter was cut-short by the slamming of the door. All turned to face the newcomers, and Almalexia felt the breath leave her throat. 

Chemua had arrived at last, but not alone; three other Nords were with him, dressed so resplendently that Almalexia knew them on sight, though she had never met most of them before. All were silent as the small group entered and dispersed around the room, taking their seats beside the Councilors they presided over. Chemua himself drew to a stop beside Almalexia, facing the table, his arms clasped smugly behind his back. 

“Well, elf,” he said. “You asked for a moot and you got one. Let’s get on with it.” 

Almalexia took a deep breath. “I would like to begin by introducing all attendants.” She spoke in a clear voice, a queen’s voice; she’d memorized the names of the House Councilors beforehand, while the Nords she couldn’t have forgotten if she wanted it. “From Great House Indoril, High Councilor Nam Indoril, beside Jarl Chemua Roaring-Heart of Mourning-Hold. From Great House Telvanni, Magister Divayth Fyr of Port Telvannis, attended by Grandmagister Sotha Sohleh of Ald Sotha. From House Dagoth, High Councilor Voryn Dagoth, whose House is presided over by Jarl Ysmir the Silent of Blacklight. From House Hlaalu, Councilor Andrano Llervu alongside Jarl Barfok of Narsis-Hold. House Redoran is represented by Sadras Suran of Redoran banner-House Sadras, also presided over by Jarl Ysmir. House Dres, though not part of the Nordic empire, has kindly agreed to attend the moot and is represented by Grandmaster Thalthil Dres. They sit opposite Jarl Hoag… Hoag Mer-Killer of Ebonheart.” 

Uneasy murmurs followed the introductions. Tension was already mounting in the room-- Indoril Nam was tapping his hand on the table unhappily, while Hoag and Thalthil Dres were glaring at each other with such unbridled hatred that Almalexia feared they might break into open combat atop the table. She hastily continued. 

“We gather here today to decide Mournhold’s future. By tradition Mournhold is ruled by a queen. It is Skyrim’s law that all monarchs be elected by a moot. Mournhold is the capital of Morrowind, and her governance concerns all the Great Houses, which is why I have called you here today. 

“As of now, I, Indoril Almalexia, heir of Indoril Amun-Shae and all the queens before her, am the only claimant to Mournhold’s throne. But Jarl Chemua puts forth a claim to it, and motions to abolish it. So--” 

Almalexia was interrupted by a sharp cough. Thalthil stood and, giving Almalexia a haughty leer, spoke: 

“You speak wrongly, serjo. There are two claimants. I claim the throne of Mournhold and motion to rename Tear the capital of Veloth, as unlike this barbarian’s hovel, Tear remain free of outlander scum.” 

“Scum!” Hoag Mer-Killer was swarthy and stout, with wiry black hair, and the roar of his objections shook the room. “You lizard-wearing savage, you call us scum? Elves are lower than beasts, and you dare call us scum! Why--” 

“Hoaga!” Jarl Barfok sung out, and her own voice thrummed with some mysterious power. “Fall silent, you irritate me.” Hoag did, indeed, fall silent at that, though not by his own decision if his expression of rage were anything to go by, and Barfok sat back smugly in her chair, returning her attention to Almalexia. “Men are so noisy. But you were saying, lass?” 

Almalexia, slightly daunted, glanced around the table. Thalthil remained standing, with Khizumet’e behind him grasping a spear, while Hoag struggled to reclaim his voice from whichever word of power Barfok had used to mute him. 

“Personally,” Indoril Nam began, before Almalexia could speak, “I’d rather swallow a live cliff-racer whole than see Thalthil Dres be king. Dominating lizards does not qualify one to lead a nation. Nay, House Indoril wholeheartedly supports Lady Almalexia’s claim, with our sincerest apologies to the Jarl.”

“House Dagoth also supports Almalexia’s claim, and Jarl Ysmir is in agreement.” This announcement caught everyone by surprise, and all eyes went to Voryn Dagoth, who met the attention with a polite smile. Ysmir, the massive bearded man who towered above the rest of the assembled even when seated, nodded in approval. 

“House Telvanni also supports Almalexia’s claim.” All the shocked expressions now turned to Divayth Fyr, who was slouching in his chair. “Well, House Telvanni cares not, but our banner-House Sotha considers her family and has assured that she will remember our gracious support. Can I leave now?” 

Thalthil Dres made a derisive noise. “What, is she sleeping with all of you, as well?” 

“Sera,” Almalexia said. 

“Oh, please, don’t you _sera_ me, child. We all know what deal the late Queen made with the Nords to earn their favour. Well, Nam, I don’t think that bedding Nords qualifies one to rule, either, you hypocritical wretch!”

“Uncle, stop it--” 

“Don’t you shush me, Khizumet’e! You know I’m right, what merit has she shown--” 

Almalexia’s threadbare patience snapped. “Did you leave your wits in the swamp?” she snapped. “If petty gossip about my dead mother is the best thing you can come up with, you may as well leave now. Go back to your slave-pens and let the civilized mer discuss these matters, for you’re clearly not suited for polite company!” 

She was backed up by a chorus of ‘hear, hear’ from the Indorils, and amused tittering from the rest of the assembled; Thalthil, blushing with indignity, was yet cowed and on a courteous poke from Khizumet’e sunk back into his seat. 

Sadras Suran took the opportunity to make his own announcement. “House Redoran,” he began, rising to his feet, “Finds this… this ‘moot’ affair to be Nordic, against tradition, and frankly, unacceptable. Your perversion of Veloth’s sacred customs is disgusting. House Redoran and its banner-Houses refuse to take any part in it hereon, and attends only to make its contempt known!” With that trite declaration, the elderly mer turned on his heel and marched out of the room. 

Chemua snorted in amusement. “Lovely.” 

“With all due respect, Lady Almalexia, I’m forced to concur with our friends from House Redoran.” Andrano Llevule rose to his feet also, bowing apologetically. “House Hlaalu has nothing but the best of wishes for you, and I’m certain you’ll make a splendid ruler, but we lack the… ah… _persuasion_ needed to support your claim. Accept our humblest regrets.” Almalexia watched, helplessly, as the Hlaalu councilor bowed and departed hastily after House Redoran. 

So only four Great Houses remained. An uncomfortable silence descended on the room as each party weighed their next decision. 

“Well!” Barfok broke the silence in a cheerful voice. She clapped her hands and gave the room a toothy grin. “I, for one, support Almalexia.” 

“ _Are you mad!_ ” Hoag had apparently broken out of her enchantment. He stood, smashing both hands against the table with such wrath that it threatened to shatter. 

“Look at her!” Barfok protested, waving at Almalexia. “She’s just a child! Are we all so craven we’d be afraid of a pup? Let the elves have their girl-king if it makes them happy! It affects us not.” 

“You elf-loving traitorous bitch, Barfok!” 

“Relax, Hoaga! I know you’re a joyless worm, but even you can’t be afraid of a--” 

Hoaga voiced a single word, causing the very room to shake, and the force that emanated from his mouth sent Barfok flying into the air and striking the wall hard behind her. 

The room descended into chaos, with everyone either reaching for a weapon or lunging for cover. The Shouts moved in front of Almalexia to protect her, and she drew her dagger from her clothes, but Hoag’s eyes were on Barfok alone, who was struggling to regain her feet at the other side of the room. He mounted the table and opened his mouth for another shout-- 

A voice both horrible and awesome filled the room, choking out the world in the oppressive frost of a winter premature. The illusion lingered for only a few moments before it subsided, but those seconds lasted longer than any second should, and when the shock subsided all assembled found themselves staring at Ysmir, who towered large as a dragon before them. Hoag was frozen, still as a statue in the middle of the table, both fists still raised and his expression contorted in mindless wrath. 

Almalexia wrenched her gaze away and ran to where Barfok was trying to right herself against the wall. She wrapped her arms around the battered Jarl, helping her to her feet, and allowed her to lean on her shoulder as they returned to the table. “Thank you,” she whispered, before returning to her place beside Chemua. 

Ysmir, too, sunk back down into his seat, and Voryn Dagoth explained to the room that the shout would wear off in an hour or so. The other Councilors slowly returned to their places, staring at the frozen Tongue with varying expressions of awe and fear, and Almalexia carefully returned the dagger to the hiding-place in her mantle. She had seen the thu’um often enough before, but it never failed to evoke terror in her.

Chemua had watched the entire ordeal silently, completely unfazed by the antics of his fellow Tongues. Now he clapped to tear the attention away from the unfortunate Hoag. “So,” he said, looking to Almalexia, “You have three Great Houses and two Jarls. There are six Great Houses, five Jarls. The moot demands a majority. You haven’t got one.” 

“One more Great House,” Almaleixa murmured. She looked to Thalthil Dres, who paid no notice to her, captivated as he was by the Hoag-statue that remained in mid-stride atop the table. Behind him, Khizumet’e gave her a knowing wink. 

“Serjo?” A low voice interrupted them from near the door, and all turned in surprise to the speaker, a guard clad in the garb of the Guild of Shouts. The man shrunk back at receiving so much noble attention, but then he regained his voice and forced himself to keep speaking: “I’ve got to ask, if I may. If you get to be queen, will you take care of the Argonian raids near Muth Gnaar? Your ma wasn’t concerned with them, since they aren’t in our Hold, but my family’s near the border, and I always wondered why we couldn’t send a few troops anyway, just to be safe…” 

He trailed off, losing his confidence, but Almalexia’s attention had already gone to Chemua. “Did you know about this?” 

Chemua frowned, looking to the guard. “I was aware and didn't care.” 

Almalexia turned her gaze to the Dres. “And you, Thalthil? Muth Gnaar is within Dres holdings.” 

This got a reaction from the ornery old mer, and he stood upright, scowled, and muttered something to Khizumet’e. When Almalexia’s attention didn’t move on from him, he said, a little louder, “We’ve been preoccupied with unrest in Stormhold, no mer to spare…” 

“Mournhold could send soldiers to your aid, if she had a ruler who cared to allow it.”

“If you think I’d accept help from the likes of _you_ \--” 

“I don’t think you would let Argonians ravage your lands for pride alone. Am I wrong? Make me queen and I shall send--” 

“Bah!” Thalthil spat and turned away from her. “Fine! Have it your way, you damned snake! Be queen of whatever wretched city you like. Dres supports her claim and washes its hands of the matter. I’m done with you barbarians!” And with that, the surly Dres marched haughtily out of the room, leaving Almalexia to process the decision that had just been made.

“So it is decided!” declared Voryn, standing and bowing to her. “My humblest congratulations, Queen Almalexia. I’ll see you at the ceremony.” 

The chamber dissolved into a chaos of discussion and triumphant crowing and angry incredulous exclamations. Almalexia hardly noticed someone pulling her to her feet, and then so many Indorils were swarming about her, and one of the brothers Dagoth was shaking her hand, and Sotha Sohleh was patting her on the back, and though Chemua had disappeared in a mute rage Barfok came up to embrace her, and someone kissed her cheek, and she found herself smiling, benevolent, thanking them and expressing her gratitude with the natural grace of a born monarch. 

Gradually, the chambers began to empty, various parties rushing out, eager to discuss the events. Dres Khizumet’e waited until they were alone before he came up and tapped Almalexia on the shoulder. She turned and, seeing who it was, smiled, and embraced him. “I must thank you for that tip about the raids. That went perfectly.”

“Your guard is a good actor,” he replied, smiling. “And-- you must forgive Thalthil. He’s old, the swamp addles him.” 

“All is forgiven, my loyal friend.” She kissed the man on the cheek and watched him leave with a careful smile. She was alone in the room now, spare the still-petrified Hoag on the table, and with eyes no longer watching her she broke into a broad grin, hugged herself, spun about and laughed aloud. 

She had _succeeded._ Her ancestors would be proud. 

*** 

“Well, you were right.” Sotha Sohleh said warmly, patting Sil on the shoulder. “Our little Almalexia had it in her after all. Queen of Mournhold! What a grand title.” 

The Grandmagister and his son sat in their guest chambers atop the western table, looking out at Mournhold. The city was one of the first constructed by the Velothi, built, it was said, atop the ruins of a conquered Dwemer stronghold, and from its humble beginnings had arisen a splendid array of tall buildings and pointed roofs wrought from stones of pale lilac and gleaming greenish limestone that seemed set aflame by the setting sun. This was Sotha Sil’s second time visiting the city, and though it was beautiful he couldn’t help compare it to the thin Daedric spires of Ald Sotha, and to him the tall buildings and their subtle earthy colours seemed feeble in comparison to the vibrant coral castles of the lagoon by his home. Though in the past weeks his mind had been preoccupied with the well-being of his friend, it was growing more difficult to ignore his homesickness, and while he was glad for Almalexia’s victory, he was even more glad of the prospect that he’d soon get to go home. 

“It’s a title,” Sil sighed. “If anyone’s earned it, it’s her. She’ll make a good queen.” 

“You don’t sound happy.” 

“I’m not displeased, I’m…” Sil paused, searching for the right words. “It’s just a precarious position. I’m worried for her. I don’t want to see her get hurt.” 

That made his father laugh, not maliciously, and he sat back, looking out the window. “She’s clever like her mother was, she’ll be able to dance around a few Nords. Don’t fret for her! Besides, she’ll have you by her side to keep her out of trouble.” 

“She said the same, but Ald Sotha is so far away, and letters take time to travel. It’s not enough, and she can be so capricious! I wish she had a counselor more trustworthy than the Indorils, at least.” 

“A counselor who’s known her since childhood, perhaps, and has no interest in the politics of Mournhold? A counselor who is like family to her?” 

“Yes, or something like that, but…” Sotha Sil realized that Sohleh was staring at him intently, and he trailed off. “What are you saying?” 

“She needs a counselor like you,” said Sohleh. “And House Telvanni needs loyal eyes in Mournhold.” 

“No.” 

“You’re close to her, in her confidence. Ald Sotha would do well with an advocate in the capital.”

“Not me, no, anyone else. Father, anyone else--” 

“You’re her friend, she trusts you. It must be you.” 

“You can’t ask this of me! Father, _please_.” 

“Come, Sil, you don’t think House Telvanni supported Almalexia from the kindness of their hearts? I promised them you’d be their voice in Mournhold.” Sohleh’s expression crumpled, a deep frown crossing his gaunt face. “I’m sorry, my son! I didn’t wish to upset you. I thought you’d be glad of this.” 

“Ald Sotha is my home,” Sil said miserably. “I can’t leave it. I don’t want to leave it, not for Mournhold’s snake-pit of a court!”

“Ald Sotha is your home, but for now it’s not where you belong.” Despite his expression of sympathy, he didn’t waver. “You’ll be Grandmagister one day, and that means doing what’s best for House Sotha. And what’s best for House Sotha is your service here.” 

Seeing that his father wouldn’t budge, Sotha Sil slumped back in his chair, the despair of the situation washing over him in a sudden wave. 

Ald Sotha _was_ his his home, where he’d been born and raised, and to a Chimer the boundary between soul and location did not exist; his village was woven into his fabric like the scaffolding a machine is built over, he was not a part of it but it a part of him. He was from there and he belonged there, in the thriving settlement by the lagoon, with the humid salt-sticky air, with the boisterous summer squalls and cool dry winters, with the gaggle of apprentices that followed him around wide-eyed with admiration, with his shrieking bickering cousins who chased dreugh and delved the coral castles, with his grandmother’s stories and his sibling’s relentless mockery and his mother’s constant gentle chiding. To be exiled from somewhere so dear, stranded without kin or card’ruhn in a strange and foreign city, made his heart ache so badly that it was nigh unbearable.

But Ald Sotha was only his home because Sotha was his House, and as the Grandmagister his father’s decision was final. He had no choice. It would mean being lonely and far from all he loved, but at least in Mournhold he could serve his kin, make his family proud, advance their interests and ensure their safety from afar. So he swallowed thickly, clenched his eyes shut, and nodded.

“You’re a grown man, Sil,” his father said sympathetically, reaching over to pat his shoulder. “The future of our House couldn’t rest on finer shoulders. One day, the name ‘Sotha’ will grace every tongue in Veloth thanks to you, I have no doubt of it. But you’re also young, your brilliant mind has been too sheltered. You need to explore and learn of the Velothi. For now, your place is here.” 

“As long as you don’t ask me to marry her,” Sotha Sil replied, numb. “She’d murder me.”

*** 

Ash fell like snow over Mournhold the day Almalexia was coronated. 

She stood in the courtyard before a crowd of the city’s people, clad in a gleaming green dress and ornamental pauldrons, festooned with the bannery of Mournhold and girt with a ceremonial sword, her hair swept in a high bun atop her head. Indoril Nam stood to her side, Sotha Sil lingered awkwardly behind her, and though Chemua was impolitely absent some of the other Jarls had come to watch the strange foreign custom with outlander’s interest. It was a joyous day, filled with laughter and singing and chatter and jests, and when the conjured ghost of her mother placed the crown on Almalexia’s head the people cheered so loudly that Mournhold itself seemed to shake with triumph. 

After the ceremony Almalexia insisted on walking through the city so that she could greet her citizens in person. This time the ash fell not on a procession of mourning but one of celebration. Almalexia found that it was getting in her eyes, but her hands were so busy and greeting the masses that she couldn’t find the time to wipe it away. The people-- her people, now, her loving subjects-- wouldn’t let her hands go free, so intent they were on touching the new Mother Mournhold. Their words were countless praises, words of thanks, bids for luck, promises they exhaled as they clutched her hands in both of theirs and squeezed it, as if to imbue in her all their love. 

Her voice was hoarse from platitudes by the time they moved from the plaza district to the eastern district, her hands aching from the crowd’s affectionate grasp. The eastern district was the poorest of Mournhold’s districts, a mess of brothels and corner-clubs and hovels poorly constructed over decaying Velothi ruins, and the ash-fall that day served to make it seem exceptionally grimy. The Shout serving as her bodyguard for the patrol insisted on returning to the palace, but Almalexia stubbornly refused. The poor, she said, so long neglected by the Nords, deserved her attention perhaps more than anyone. Before they could attempt to halt her she pressed into the throng and redoubled her efforts to greet every single mer that approached her.

They were halfway through the district when they heard the scream.

At first, only Almalexia heard it. She stopped in her tracks, distracted, while an elderly woman tried to press a sack of saltrice into her arms. Her guard, when asked, suggested that it was merely a random fragment of noise, twisted into anxious shapes by her exhaustion and the ashfall, and he urged her to move on, perhaps a little too anxiously. All doubt was put to rest when the blood-curdling noise sounded again, this time accompanied by faint cries for help. On instinct Almalexia was off and pushing through the crowd, seeking the source of the desperate screaming. 

In the narrow gap between two buildings, half-concealed by a bush, a woman lay writing on the ground. Two mer were already by her side, one holding her head and the other crouching next to her, but both looked scared and shocked, and when Almalexia approached they yielded to the authority figure without hesitation. With an order barked they carried the screaming women to the front of the building, and there Almalexia knelt by her head. Blood, was the first thing she noticed: there was blood everywhere, and a lot of it. 

Almalexia had been given rudimentary training in the arts of healing at Ald Sotha, but she was clumsy with magic at the best of times, and at that moment everything she had managed to learn fled from her mind. There was the blood, so there must be a wound, and it was that wound she needed to find, so she drew the ornamental sword and clumsily used it to cut at the woman’s robe, even as the poor wretch convulsed with a heavy groan. She pulled off the bloodied rags, revealing an engorged belly and fluid-drenched thighs, and then she could only stare, unable to make sense of what she saw before her.

By then Sotha Sil had caught up to them, having been trailing behind the procession and late to hear of the incident, and he drew to Almalexia’s side. He looked down and, with his typical aloofness, quite calmly answered her unanswered question: “She’s giving birth.” 

The woman screamed and convulsed, and Almalexia instantly moved to comfort her, pulling her torso up into her lap. Inexplicable revulsion gave way to pity, but when she turned her head Sotha Sil-- who had many siblings, she remembered, who had cousins, who was raised near the livestock of his home-- was blessedly unfazed and had already called for water, blankets. “Keep her calm,” he ordered, but even that command was cut off by her agonized shriek. The stench of blood was heavy. Almalexia doubled over, cradling her face and rubbing her shoulders, speaking out loud and calmly, offering solace to the stranger even as blood soaked her ceremonial garments and the crowd pressed in close. Later people would recount this scene to each other as testament to Mother Mournhold’s selfless mercy; in that moment she thought of nothing of the sort, but was detached herself, acting mindlessly from a desire to help without fully knowing what she was doing. 

The next moments passed without Almalexia noticing them. There was a shout from the woman in her arms, and a shout from the crowd, and a blur of chaos, someone thrusting blankets past her, the ever-present stench of blood, an incomprehensible scream coalescing around a dying face in her lap. 

And then there was a _different_ scream, and a moment later someone pressed something into her arms. “Hold her,” that was Sotha Sil, and someone else was saying “There’s too much blood”, and another saying “Healers--”, and another said “I am, but she’s too--” All this said beneath a veil of hearty shrieking, and Almalexia realized she held an infant the moment its mother died. 

The face in her lap was twisted in pain, its eyes dull and lost to the world, but her new heir had been born strong and was strong and shrieking like a harpy. Almalexia raised it to her breast, kissed its bloody forehead, staring numbly down at the corpse sprawled out in her lap, until she felt Sotha Sil come to her side and wrap an arm around her. She looked up to see countless eyes staring at her, for she sat among a throng of healers and priests who had by now moved into help; when one tried to take the infant from her she recoiled on instinct, protective. 

“Who was she?” she asked aloud, over the child’s cries. “Who was this woman?” 

“We don’t know,” replied the priest. “A pauper, a vagabond.” 

“But who was she? Her name, her home…?” 

“We don’t know. She was soul-sick and mute. We do not know.” 

Someone was saying something else, but Almalexia ceased to listen, and instead looked down at the bawling child in her arms. Whatever malady had struck its mother had failed to dampen its spirits, and it screamed inconsolably as falling ash coated its gore-streaked face. She tried to wipe it clean with the corner of a blanket. Infant Chimer looked a little like bats, she thought dimly, and this one had too-big ears that drooped, its nose a little over-large for its face, but it was utterly beautiful nonetheless. 

“My queen,” this time it was the Shout that came to her, “Are you unharmed? By the eight, what an awful sight.” 

“Ayem,” said Sotha SIl, and she noticed that he was shaking, “The child--” 

“Is mine,” she replied without hesitation. “I will take it back to the palace.”

“You cannot--” Sotha Sil broke off, sighed, and instead asked, “Is it a boy or a girl?” 

“It’s…” Almalexia pulled the blankets back from the shrieking creature, and then gasped softly. “I think it’s both.”

“A Mephalan?”

“An evil portent!” one of the onlookers cried. “Molag Bal’s work!” 

“It ought to burn!” 

“A child,” Almalexia replied fiercely, looking up at her people. Someone had moved away the body of the dead woman, now, and she rose to her feet, ignoring the shaking of her limbs. She must have looked a sight, wearing ceremonial garb and yet covered in blood and trembling all over and clutching a crying newborn, but she held herself with the bold authority of royalty. “ _My_ child, until he is claimed, and if any wish to harm him, they will go through me.” 

A stiff silence fell, which was finally broken by her Shout, who asked, with some trepidation, “Will you give him a name?” 

By now the infant had exhausted itself from its crying, and it had opened its eyes, squinting comically into the ashy air. Pale golden eyes, Almalexia thought, the colour Saint Veloth was said to have had, with long lashes. Sotha Sil moved to her side again, and she thought of ash, her own mother, and a seven-syllable spell with a missing name. 

“Vehk,” she announced. “His name is Vehk.” 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- 
> 
> ABOUT THE FIC: 
> 
> For those of you who read the first edition of this fic, or want context.
> 
> The first edition of Egg of Time was started when I was 18, back in 2015. It was the first serious piece of writing I ever attempted. My motive at the time was to give a compelling backstory to Almalexia-- to explain how I thought she came to be the way she is-- and also to present my interpretation of the 36 Lessons of Vivec. It was an intensely personal fanfic, drawing on experiences and topics that were important to me, and became a way for me to make sense of my own traumatic childhood. I stopped writing it when my mental health deteriorated.
> 
> I'm rewriting it now, five years later, having been through a ridiculous amount of therapy, because I still like the story and the characters and want to address it as someone with a little more writing experience and life experience than the unhinged teenager who started it. Progress will probably be slow, but I don't intend to give this one up. 
> 
> Updates will probably be once a month or so.
> 
> Thanks for reading, and feel free to voice any questions or comments or concerns! I'm not the best at replying to comments but every bit of feedback is deeply cherished. 
> 
> -AeAyem


	2. Chapter II

_1E397, Rain's Hand._

_Ayem came first to the village of the netchimen, and her shadow was that of Boethiah, who was the Prince of Plots, and things unknown and known would fold themselves around her until they were like stars or the messages of stars._

* * *

One-hundred and fifty seven years it had been since the Nords invaded Veloth and made it their own. To all but the youngest of the long-lived Chimer it seemed a single episode of misfortune, a momentary mistake that would blow over in time. The Chimer were a proud race and long-lived, and they had absolute certainty that their gods stood on their side, so they maintained a stubborn belief that the Nordic menace would soon be driven out, and that the occupation was only temporary. 

The Nords felt differently. Even in the earliest days of Tamriel, it took great fortune for a Nord to grow older than one-hundred and fifty years, and by 1E397 all but one of the original invaders had passed on to Sovngarde. Perhaps their descendants remembered their tales of hoary Skyrim, and of course they revered the daring grandparents that had first lay Morrowind low; many of them, however, had been born in the east, and had never set foot beyond Dunmeth pass. Their frozen homeland was but a dream to them, a distant fantasy to be shared while gathered around unnecessary hearths on a cool Deshaan evening. Even the mightiest of the Tongues did not hold a pure connection to Skyrim. Chemua had been born in Mournhold, Hoaga in the halls of Ebonheart, Jurgen Wind-Caller first learned to write in the Daedric script, and even mighty Ysmir confessed to his close confidants that he was more loyal to the Red Mountain than to Kyne’s frozen northland. Though the Chimer considered the Nords a temporary pest, the Nords had begun to considered themselves at home. 

Nowhere was this unwarranted comfort more profound than in Mournhold, where queen Amun-Shae had _encouraged_ it. Soon after the conquest ended, the Nords began to settle prosperous Deshaan in droves, and Mournhold’s population boomed with incoming colonizers. Mournhold was a city of expansive public gardens, and the Queen, true to her promise, became its gardener of men. When the Nords established their bakeries, she persuaded them to use Morrowind’s native wickwheat instead of the costly Skyrim-wheat they purchased from traders; when they constructed their apiaries, she invited the Indoril bee-keepers to advise them, and lowered taxes for any corner-clubs that agreed to serve mead along their usual fare. In matters of law and justice she tactfully balanced the authorities of Indoril and Jarl both, designating the judgement of crimes with a diligence so careful that her subjects rarely felt wronged. As the Nords settled in and city, life continued as always, a new code of laws arose from her careful deliberations, and along with them, a new way of life. 

The occupation and Mournhold’s prosperous assimilation wore on. One century in, the ageless Jarl Mem-yet disappeared mysteriously. She was replaced by her son Chimarvir, a young and optimistic warrior whose cheerful, boisterous disposition didn’t at all fit his grim name, which meant ‘Chimer-dying’ in draconic. Chimarvir had been born in Mournhold and raised by Amun-Shae, and in him and in the rest of his generation her careful gardening bore fruit: Chimarvir considered Mournhold his home and had utmost faith in its queen to rule it. Yes, Chimarvir was a Tongue, capable of conjuring storm and blight with a word, but he was also a healthy young man living in the height of Skyrim’s glory-days. He had little interest in ruling-- why should a great warrior and the Jarl of Mournhold fret about House Politics and property taxes when he had tournaments to win, raids to lead, women to bed and scandals to involve himself in? So, as reckless young men tend to do, he left his responsibilities in the capable hands of his female counterpart and spent the bulk of his rule in carefree luxury.

Thus Queen Amun-Shae regained much of her power, and her first act was to codify the hodge-podge code of laws that had awkwardly arisen to reconcile Indoril and Nordic customs. This new law required an impartial new guard to enforce it, one who was loyal to Mournhold and held no sway towards House Indoril or Skyrim, and so was created the Guild of Shouts. 

The Guild of Shouts was by-and-large Nordic. However, eighty years of occupation had passed before they were created, and so most of them were not Skyrim-born but belonged to the wayward in-between generation that bore no stronger connection to the west than hearth-tales and their own blunt ears. Mournhold was a city of such in-betweens, who had long earned the derision of more traditional Chimer and Nords alike, but for all the scorn they earned, they proved to be a great boon to their city: the Shouts felt that Mournhold was their true home and they were loyal to her queen above all else. At first they were in competition with the Jarl’s standing army and the House-guard whose authority the Indorils had fought fiercely to maintain. Then, in 1E369, the War of Succession broke out, and the ever-idealistic Chimarvir sent away his army to aid Jarl Hanse as the civil war began to rip the Empire of Nords apart. House Indoril backed down after much flattery and promise from the Queen, and the Shouts became the new standing army of Mournhold, unmoved by the tides of Jarls and House Politics. 

Thus was the nature of the Guild of Shouts: loyal to Mournhold and loyal to Amun-Shae, even when Jarl Chimarvir died of a mysterious illness and was succeeded by his son, the blighter Chemua. And when Amun-Shae passed away from a similar mysterious illness four years later, the Shouts faithfully turned their eyes to her daughter Almalexia, who had been raised and trained among them and was considered as in-between as they were. 

“I’ve known Almalexia since she was a small thing, you know!” boasted a Shout to her fellows over the clamour of a vigorous celebration. It was the night following the moot, and the city’s guard was honouring the venerable Nordic tradition of using any notable event as an excuse to get drunk. “She was always a lively girl, a real daring type, you know, the adventurous sort. Used to tell me she’d grow up to be a dragon-slayer, like in Nikolvara’s tales.” 

The speaker was Heigl Ash-Helm, the second commander of the Guild, a vigorous woman with a broad motherly face who sat on one of the rough-hewn tables that lined the barracks precisely to facilitate such parties. She had amassed a healthy crowd of spectators around her, enthralling them with stories about the new queen and her many childhood misadventures.

“An elf? Killing a dragon?” objected a rather drunk man sitting by her side.

“ _Our_ elf!” Someone else interjected, to approving shouts. “The queen’s _our_ elf! One of us, I say!” 

“One of us indeed!” Heigl shouted, waving her mug of mead (her sixth that evening) at her supporter. “You don’t know the half of it. Why, I have just the story! I remember a time when she was a pup-- you know the Chimer don’t have many children, and she was all alone in the castle as a little one. So she took to me as a dear friend, like a little sister, always asking me to tell her stories about Nords and Skyrim and dragons and this, and that. Gods, that was a fun time, I’d carry her about on my back during my patrols sometimes--”

“Get to the story, Heigl!” 

“I’m getting there, Hjaland, Shor’s arse! Well, I remember one day Almalexia ran up to me-- she couldn’t have been a day older than eight, mind you-- and she asked me,” Heigl put down her mug as she became invested in the story, changing her voice and acting out the characters with her body. “She asked me, ‘Heigl, is it true? Is it true the Nords fight with their voices?’ And I looked at her and I said, ‘Aye, little one, it’s true, and if you aren’t well-behaved, I’ll use my thu’um to shout you right out the window!” 

“You can’t even shout!” protested someone. 

“Shor’s _hairy_ arse, Fildgor, don’t you interrupt me! Anyway, I didn’t think much of it, just a child’s curiosity. But the next day I was guarding the Jarl, and who runs in but little Almalexia, wielding her training sword and deathly serious. And she marches straight up to him and, bold as could be, she says: ‘Jarl, I challenge you for the throne!’”

A few chuckles emerged from the crowd as, with the aid of Heigl’s animated storytelling, they imagined an elven girl with a wooden sword facing down a mighty Nord Jarl. 

Heigl’s smile broadened. “Now, you know, in Skyrim custom a Jarl cannot honourably refuse a challenge by combat, even from a little elf with a wooden sword. So the Jarl-- and this was the last Jarl, mind, he was a good, honourable man-- he had no choice. He rose from his throne, and he solemnly declared: ‘Very well, little elf, I accept your challenge, and I will duel you for my throne.’” 

“You’re joking! The Jarl duel a child?” 

“I’m solemn as Solitude. You’re new, so you wouldn’t have ever met him, but the last Jarl had a sense of humour, and he loved little Almalexia like his own daughter. I’m sure he only intended to give her a few little swats, play with her, and such. So he rose from his seat and they went to the middle of the throne-room as if they were about to fight.”

“Did they?”

“Well,” Heigl laughed, “The Jarl drew his sword, and Almalexia drew hers. But before the Jarl could so much as tap her, the little elf-- wouldn’t you believe it!-- she opened her mouth and _screamed_ at him.” 

“She shouted?” 

“Exactly! Or at least she thought she did. It was more of a shriek, really, but what a mighty shriek! And the Jarl, why, he was so surprised that he fell over, right back on his buttocks! Almalexia, the little scoundrel, declared ‘I win!’ and charged out laughing before poor old Chimarvir even knew what hit him!” 

The crowd erupted into laughter. “A Tongue losing a duel to a child!” someone exclaimed. “Tell that tale to the skalds.” 

Heigl, beaming with pride, sat back and lifted her mug, “And you know what? He never challenged her back, so the throne remains hers to this day! A toast to Jarl Almalexia!” 

“To the Jarl!” roared the crowd, and everyone drank deeply. Then someone else started on an old tale about Clavicus Vile, the child-god, and Heigl, now contently tired from the drink and her own animated storytelling, settled back in a corner and let her eyes close, enjoying the upbeat mood of her comrades and the cozy warmth of the barracks. 

“You always choose the most embarrassing stories to tell,” a guard, still armored and helmeted from her shift, complained as she slid into the seat beside Heigl. 

Heigl smiled gently, closing her eyes and lulling her head back. “Oh, Almalexia may complain about dignity, but we Shouts remember her when she was twelve and sneaking in here to play cards with us. We know who she is, it’s our duty to remind her of that, keep her humble.” 

“ _Humble_ me? I’ll duel you next, Heigl, if you keep that up.”

“Huh?” Heigl opened her eyes, and she saw that the ‘guard’ had pressed herself into the shadows and lifted the visor of the helm, revealing a comely golden face and thin lips twisted into a humorous grin. “Almalexia!” she gasped, “What--”

“Shh!” Almalexia let the visor fall. “Not so loudly. I’m not meant to be here, I snuck away.”

“But why? You’re always welcome in here, no need to sneak.” 

“I needed to speak to you without Chemua knowing. He’s with the other Tongues getting drunk, so it seemed a good opportunity. Will you come for a walk with me?” 

The barracks was its own building that sat close to the eastern edge of the courtyard, which in times of war served as mustering-grounds. Mournhold was a city of gardens indeed, and the walls which encompassed the palace and its courtyard were lined with a thick belt of flora, tall pink-leafed Moril trees creating a shady walkway among beds of golden kanet, Timsa-come-by, sweetbarrels and the many vegetables, fruits and herbs that prospered in fertile Deshaan. At night the gardens were shady and concealed, perfect for secret conversations, and the two women kept close to the walls as they walked. 

“I’ll speak frankly with you,” Almalexia kept her gaze focused ahead as they walked, her voice soft so as not to alert any of the unfortunate Shouts who were stuck on guard duty that night. “But first, I need to ask you something. May I trust you? On your honour as a Nord, on your homeland and your gods, as a citizen of Mournhold, will you keep everything we say tonight a secret?” 

Heigl, though surprised at such a serious address, pressed her hand to her breast and bowed her head. “I swear to you on the blood of Clan Ash-Helm who call Mournhold our home, you have my word. What’s on your mind, sera?” 

“Chemua is.” Almalexia sighed. “He’s furious with me. He never thought I’d win that moot, not in a million years, and now he’s furious. I’m convinced he’s going to retaliate somehow.”

“We won’t let him harm you,” Heigl butted in. “It’s dishonourable for a Tongue to attack an unarmed woman, even he wouldn’t--” 

“I’m not worried about that, Heigl! I’m not scared of anything he’d do to me. What I’m scared of is that he’ll exact revenge on the people of Mournhold.” Almalexia remained helmeted, but her posture was tense, making her anxiety obvious. “Believe me, if I thought he were some brute who would simply hit me as revenge, I wouldn’t have dragged you into this. But he’s more… clever than that. He’s not like you or I. He hates the Chimer and he hates Morrowind, but he knows I love both, so that’s who he’ll strike if he retaliates. I’m worried that he’ll try to induce a famine, or harm the city somehow.” 

“But Deshaan is his Hold, Mournhold his city. Why would he harm it?” 

“Because he doesn’t care for it! Not more than he cares for himself. I don’t confess this lightly, but I’m terrified of what he’ll come up with to punish me. He’s so tricky. If he finds pretense to send the guards into the ancestral tombs, or if he does induce a famine, he could start riots. He could order the city sacked.” 

“The Shouts would never, though!” Heigl exclaimed hotly. “Not a man of us would agree to it!” 

“Are you sure? The First Commander is his Housecarl.”

Heigl hung her head, and Almalexia pulled off the helm, running her hand through her loose hair with a heavy sigh. 

“You’re scaring me,” Heigl said at last. “I don’t want it to come to war. Not with Chemua. I’ve heard the tales, how the blighter poisoned Kastav’s fields and left them to starve. If you’re right, if he turns on Deshaan, it’s the whole nation that will starve.”

“It won’t come to that! The role of the queen is to ensure it won’t come to that. But he’s holding all the cards. He has power that I don’t. If I’m to have any chance against him, I need my own army-- I need the Shouts on my side.” 

They crossed into a pool of moonlight, and Heigl flinched and retreated, seeking safety in the shadows of the garden. Almalexia put a hand on her shoulder to reassure her. The Nords weren’t made for subterfuge like the Chimer were, even those that were raised in Mournhold, and plotting treason was against their very nature; a part of Almalexia regretted dragging her Second Commander into this difficult situation. 

Heigl turned away from her, as if captivated by a nearby pumpkin-patch. “Look,” she murmured, voice low, “Most of us hate Chemua too. He’s an ornery bastard, and you’re right that he doesn’t care about our city. If it ever comes to that-- us choosing-- I’d say you have a good two-thirds of us on your side.” 

“I promised the Dres that we’d put down an Argonian rebellion in Muth Gnaar. There’s a chance the Shouts will have to march without the Jarl’s blessing. Will they?” 

“I-- I don’t know. We’ve put down rebellions and bandit-raids before, but the First Commander won’t go anywhere without the Jarl.”

“But that two-thirds you mentioned, they would follow you into battle, regardless of what Chemua had to say about it.” 

“I’m sorry, Lexie, I can’t put their necks on the line like that! He’d have us all executed for mutiny!” 

Almalexia grimaced, twisting her hands into a gesture before her breast, an old nervous habit of hers. “Because only his Housecarl can order the Shouts to march out of the city. Hm.”

“That’s right.” Heigl turned to her, shoulders falling. “Gods above, girl, you’re going to give me gray hairs. I wish I could help you more.” 

“But, if the First Commander were indisposed, you would assume control.”

“Ah, until Chemua chose a new Housecarl, perhaps--”

Almalexia frowned. “Then we’ll have to be quick.” 

Heigl’s eyebrows arched. “Hold on just a moment, what do you mean--” 

Almalexia stepped close to Heigl, taking one of the Commander’s hands between both of hers and pressing it, and though her voice remained quiet she spoke quickly, with nervous excitement. “Can you have the Shouts ready to march in, say, a week’s time? I’ll have to speak with Khizumet’e and make the arrangements, but I don’t wish to delay any more than I must.” 

“I mean, they’ll be glad of it, but what in _Oblivion--_ ”

“What you said in the barracks, how I was like a little sister to you? I think the same of you. You’re family to me, and I trust you unconditionally. I’m asking you to trust me too.” They remained concealed in the shadows, but a stray beam of moonlight caught them and made Almalexia’s eyes flash. “Will you trust me?”

Heigl took a deep breath, hesitated-- and clasped Almalexia’s hands in turn. “Damn you, my dear girl, you’ll be the death of me! I’ll get the loyal ones ready to head out on your command.” 

“Thank you, Heigl! Thank you.” 

“Don’t thank me! What did I just agree to, treason? Oh, I must’ve had too much mead, I must be drunk. But-- what about the First Commander?” 

Almalexia released her hands, and stepped back into the moonlight, giving Heigl a smile that was anything but reassuring. “I’ll deal with him myself.” 

*** 

By the time Sundas morning’s sun rose over Mournhold’s walls, the ash storms of last week had long been blown away, and it was hard to imagine the fragrant air that could ever be anything less than pure. Gentle winds from the south-east brought the scent of saltrice and wickwheat fields sweeping over the city, and the faint hint of thriving crops and fertile soil on the breeze was enough to refresh even the the gloomiest of mer’s spirits. Atop Mournhold’s western tower, where his guest-chambers had been converted into a permanent residence, Sotha Sil dangled nearly halfway out the window and inhaled as deeply as he could. It was a rather feeble attempt to numb the homesickness that gnawed perpetually at his heart; saltrice paddies and distant swamps were a pale replacement for the salty sea-smells of Ald Sotha. 

The dawn’s tranquility was abruptly pierced by the shriek of an infant. The sound faded after a few moments, but it had done its part to shake Sotha Sil from his thoughts. He pulled himself inside and shrugged on a robe, then made his way out of his chambers and down the familiar path to Almalexia’s private quarters. He had no doubt where the unusual noise would have come from. 

He let himself into Almalexia’s bedchamber and found her, just as he’d predicted, struggling with Vehk. She was trying, with little success, to dress hir in an elaborate infant’s gown; Vehk was protesting vehemently, kicking hir tiny legs and squirming even as the queen tried to coax hir arms into the sleeves. When Almalexia saw Sotha Sil she let out a relieved gasp and beckoned him over. “Sil! Come hold Vehk for me, I need to get him-- her-- Vehk-- dressed.” 

Sotha Sil obeyed her, lifting up the little devil and holding hir with the well-practiced familiarity of someone who’d dealt with newborn cousins many a time in the past. Vehk was more vigorous than most newborns Sotha Sil had held before and it took most of his concentration to keep hir still. One week old and already defying queens, Sotha Sil thought with vague amusement; ze would no doubt have an interesting life. 

“Thank you!” Almalexia finally succeeded in getting Vehk into the garment and promptly swept hir back into her arms. Vehk, having exhausted hirself in the struggle, settled for drooling on the extravagant cloth. “I’d never have managed that by myself. She’s-- he’s a feisty one.” 

“Those are a daughter’s clothes,” Sotha Sil observed. 

“They were mine. It’s all I had. It means nothing, though. The nursemaid thinks I should choose whether she-- he-- whether _they_ should be raised as a daughter or a son. I know life isn’t easy for a Mephalan, but I hate the thought of deciding that, it seems disingenuous. Besides, who would dare trouble the ward of a queen?” Almalexia gently handed the infant to Sotha Sil. “Hold him. Her. I need to get dressed.” 

Vehk seemed unhappy with this arrangement, and expressed hir displeasure by slobbering on hir own chin. Sotha Sil patiently wiped the drool away with his finger. “What’s the occasion?”

Almalexia was turned away from him, and had apparently ceased to listen, focused as she was on her ceremonial garb; the same ornamented pauldrons and mantle she’d worn at her coronation, but the spider-silk dress had been switched out for a robe of light blue, presumably due to the bloodstains left by Vehk’s arrival. After watching her fumble with the buckles of the heavy armour for a moment, Sotha Sil lay Vehk down on the bed and went to aid her. Usually the task of dressing royalty was carried out by her handmaidens, but today’s event seemed to be somewhat secretive. Almalexia didn’t speak as she dressed, keeping her back turned to Sotha Sil even as he fastened her pauldrons over her shoulders, but in the mirror before them he could see that she wore a troubled frown. 

“We’re having a funeral for Vehk’s mother,” she confessed once she’d been dressed. 

Vehk let out a cry, and Almalexia rushed over to hir, gathering hir up in her arms. “We’re burying her in the necropolis,” she added, and then she trailed off, wholly distracted by the task of trying to soothe her charge. Sotha Sil went to her and took the (apparently quite spoiled) child from her arms again, to her relief. Judging by her clumsiness, he doubted that Almalexia had any experience whatsoever with children; however, she made up her inexperience with enthusiasm, and although they’d assigned a perfectly capable nursemaid to look after Vehk, Almalexia insisted on personally caring for the infant as often as she was able. 

Once Sotha SiI took over and Vehk calmed down, Almalexia went back to the mirror to begin the daunting task of styling her hair. “There won’t be many in attendance,” she continued. “We still don’t know who she is, or what family she comes from. I wish we could do more. There will be a priest, and the beggars who found her…” she fell silent, focused on balancing a mass of red curls behind the jade crown on her brow. Vehk smacked hir lips and blew a spit-bubble at Sotha Sil’s face.

“We have to find her family,” Sotha Sil broke the silence in a soft voice. 

“I know, I know. But beggars come to Mournhold from all over Morrowind. It’s not that I believe Mephalan children are the spawn of Molag Bal, that’s a ridiculous tale, but if we learned her mother was from the House of Troubles, the Temple would see it as a bad omen against my rule. Besides, the ordeal was so public. If anyone had anything to tell us, they’d have come forwards by now. What else can we do? As far as anyone knows, she was nobody.” 

“We must keep trying, then. House is everything to a Chimer, we can’t deprive this child of that.” 

“House isn’t everything. I’m not overly close with my own family. The nursemaid suggested that I ask my ancestors, but do you know what they’d have to say about me raising a child not of Indoril blood? I can practically hear my grandmother screaming at me: _disgrace, disgrace!_ Old hag.” Almalexia finished her hair, then, and whirled around to face them. 

At the sight of hir adopted mother’s face Vehk cooed in delight and extended an arm, and this gesture made Almalexia break into a wide smile. Her sparse experience with children was a shame, Sotha Sil decided then; he couldn’t recall ever seeing her so joyful, so _loving_. Throughout the week he had privately, cynically, assumed that Almalexia’s attachment to Vehk was her attempt at distracting herself from the perilous political situation she’d enmeshed herself in, but the affection he saw in her now was genuine.

That made his next words all the more difficult for him to say: “No, Ayem. We have to find Vehk’s family so that we have someone to raise them.” 

A moment’s silence. “What do you mean?”

“You can’t raise them. You know this.” 

Several emotions crossed Almalexia’s face-- shock, anger, grief. She settled on anger. “You’re wrong,” she said curtly. “He’s mine, and I fully intend to raise him.” 

“You _know_ you can’t do that,” replied Sotha Sil. “You said yourself that the Indorils will never allow it. I’ve spoke with them myself. Do you know what they think about their young unmarried heir raising a child that isn’t her own?” 

“He _is_ my own!” Scowling, she moved to snatch Vehk from his arms, but Sotha Sil stepped back. “I birthed him!” she continued, “Not from my body, maybe, but I held him and I kissed the blood from his face and I named him and I shall raise him. He is _mine_.” 

“Do not let emotion rule you. The Indorils will forsake you if you insist on this.” 

“The Indorils can be damned! They aren’t family to me, I care not for them--” 

“You _need_ the Indorils, Almalexia! You’re a Chimer and House is everything to us. If Chemua turns on the city, whose army will you call to defend it? The Shouts?”

“The Shouts are loyal to me.” 

“It’s not enough. You aren’t a Nord! They aren’t your family--” 

“They’re more of a family to me than House Indoril has ever been. Ald Sotha has sheltered you! I can’t trust the Indorils any more than I trust Chemua. Not all of us have a father like Sohleh, Seht, and if you think the Indorils care for me, you’re naive!” 

“Then you don’t need them as your enemies!” 

Vehk had started crying during the argument, upset by the raised voices. Almalexia’s expression was dark and her body tense, but she extended an arm. “Give him to me,” she muttered. This time Sotha Sil complied, and Almalexia took the infant, sinking onto her bed, holding Vehk to her chest and doubling over so that her whole body guarded hir. Sotha Sil watched, his gut twisting into knots, as his friend rocked hir to silence, whispering half-formed lullabies and meaningless praises against her forehead.

The rumours about Almalexia’s own origins were vague. Common belief was that she was born somewhere on Vvardenfell during the dark few years the Queen had departed in secret for reasons unknown, but Amun-Shae had never revealed the identity of the father nor the circumstances of her birth, and Sotha Sil recalled a moment too late that the Indorils had never forgiven Almalexia for this indiscretion. 

“You asked me to be your counsellor,” Sotha Sil said gently. “This is my counsel. The decision is yours to make, but you know I’m right.” 

The outpouring of love had soothed little Vehk, and ze had ceased to cry, staring contentedly out at the room with half-closed eyes. Almalexia watched hir for a moment, then turned her head away to prevent tears from falling on hir face. “Just… give me this day,” she replied, all the willfulness gone from her voice. “Please.” 

Sotha Sil, who knew Almalexia better than anyone, bowed and left the room. 

Duties were suspended on Sundas, so Sotha Sil was free to do as he pleased. He chose to return to his chambers. Though lacking in the many simple delights of Ald Sotha, the city of Mournhold hoarded a veritable wealth of oddities and delights the likes of which couldn’t be dreamed of on Vvardenfell. Not least among these were the multitudinous pawn shops where one could find Dwemeri scrap, an array of mechanical trinkets and scientific oddities that thieves had brazenly pilfered from many a stronghold. When the Nords had invaded Veloth, the Dwemer’s novel response was to simply abandon their mainland strongholds and retreat to Vvardenfell unscathed. Their departure proved lucrative for the mainland’s burglars, who soon realized that there was a booming black market for dwarven curios, and in parts of the eastern district of Mournhold the peddlers’ stalls were so crammed with brass relics that the market looked like a reconstructed Dwemer stronghold. 

To Sotha Sil, who always had an interest in mechanics thanks to the prosthetic legs he constructed and maintained himself, these dingy little stalls with their pilfered constructs were worth more than an ebony mine. He was already accumulating a large collection of indecipherable notes and unfathomable brass contraptions, much to his father’s chagrin.

Luckily, Sotha Sohleh was away on business by the time Sotha Sil had returned to his chambers. The argument with Almalexia had left him with a dull ache of guilt in his chest, somehow conspiring with his heart to make the pain of homesickness keener than ever; if this were Ald Sotha, he could seek distraction with his younger siblings, or advice from his grandmother and comfort from his mother. For now he was forced to settle for a good book. It was some sort of manual he’d rescued from an unscrupulous bookseller, and while the translation from Dwemeris to Chimeri was nearly unintelligible and the diagrams elusive when their labels were rendered in gibberish, puzzling over the bizarre linguistics made for a good distraction. The wizard sat down at his desk, opened the book, spread out his notes, and got to work. 

By some miracle he remained undisturbed until early in the afternoon. He was midway through untangling a particularly convoluted translation when a brief knock roused him from his thoughts. He put his quill down, sighed, and went to open the door-- and was greeted by the sight of Almalexia, still in her funeral clothes and wearing a sullen frown. 

Both of them remained silent for a long moment, and then Almalexia spoke. “Azura’s Sanctum, in the southern part of the East District,” she informed him, reluctant. “That’s where Vehk’s mother was staying before… before her death. If you mean to take… them from me, you must be the one to find where they must go.” 

Before he could answer she turned and stalked off, and Sotha Sil found that he couldn’t be irate with her, not when he was missing his own family so. 

***

As was all too appropriate for the day of the funeral, the send-off of Vehk’s mother had marked the last clear day before a rainstorm made its way up to Mournhold. After she had been ritualistically cremated and her ashes interred in one of Mournhold’s pauper necropolises, the rain had descended, casting the entire city in a gloomy drizzle that lingered without abating. 

Such a gloomy drizzle seemed appropriate on that miserable Mundas, and Almalexia appreciated it as she wandered the Eastern District in disguise with Vehk strapped to her chest. She was given to fantasy, and a rainy day overlooking her quest for assassins seemed, to her, satisfyingly thematic.

Going to the Morag Tong had actually been Dres Khizumet’e’s idea. Khizumet’e, though a newcomer to Mournhold’s court and only there on the irritable Thalthil’s orders, had wasted no time in enmeshing himself within the city’s politics. His rapid assimilation into the capital was remarkable enough to warrant an explanation of the mer himself: Khizumet’e was tall, even for a Chimer, but he was not large; he was lanky and long-limbed, his lithe appearance accentuated by his thin features and the long black hair he wore in elaborate feathered braids. Though House Dres held a dark reputation, Khizumet’e was a neat and attractive man, apparently at odds with the stern brutality renowned in his kin. In disposition he was outgoing, warm, endearingly blunt in the way that one who considers everyone his ally can be blunt, and-- most importantly-- friendly to a fault.

This unnatural friendliness was Khizumet’e’s weapon and the secret to his rapid success. Despite being in Mournhold only a short while, he had been swift to get acquainted with anyone of importance, and earning the affection of the most disagreeable individuals was something he seemed to take as a challenge, one he rose to eagerly. His most recent conquest was _Chemua_ , to Almalexia’s utter bafflement; the first time she’d caught the two in a deep discussion she’d assumed she was about to be murdered horribly. However, after a bit of eavesdropping revealed that they simply shared a ghoulish fascination with famines, she chose to leave the unlikely duo alone. Khizumet’e understood this game of hers well, she realized quickly-- while he kept Chemua distracted with his many ideas about poisoning Whiterun, Almalexia was free to scheme unnoticed.

Khizumet’e’s morbid persuasions had not only been his key to the Jarl’s heart but proved his key to the Queen’s as well. The First Commander of the Guild of Shouts needed to die, that much was clear to Almalexia, but she had never ordered an assassination before and wouldn’t have known how to go about it. She had been considering some form of poison when the Dres heir ‘suggested’ purchasing a writ. In the Nord-occupied Morrowind, the Morag Tong was outlawed, but all manner of illegal things prospered in the Mournhold underground. Khizumet’e-- who had not spared Almalexia his supernatural friendliness-- had cornered her after dinner one evening, and struck up an amiable if not slightly one-sided conversation about rumours he’d heard of the Morag Tong dwelling in the sewers of the city’s Eastern district, and despite her attempts to change the topic, he had regaled her with the many gruesome ways the Morag Tong was known to assassinate troublesome military-men, until she’d gotten the message and mentioned taking Vehk for a walk in the area later. 

She’d had nightmares that night about murdered men, and upon waking the next morning, silently vowed to put an end to the friendship between Khizumet’e and Chemua; her own queasiness over the coming assassination notwithstanding, she suspected that if they kept encouraging each other’s morbid interests, she’d never get a good night’s sleep again. 

That morning marked the day after the funeral of Vehk’s mother, so perhaps death was simply in the overcast air; still, Almalexia spent the morning with Vehk’s nursemaid in a nervous daze. Most of the visiting Tongues had departed, and only a few Councilors remained, so the bustle of the palace had died down to the familiar busy hum she’d grown up with. Sotha Sil had already left on his quest for Vehk’s family, and Khizumet’e had quite pointedly let her know that he and Chemua were departing on a horse-ride to accompany Barfok partway back to Narsis. In short, she’d been given a perfect opportunity. She only had to use it.

She sent the nursemaid away, and told the steward she planned to spend the day with Vehk and would not take visitors. Her show of simple tenderness must have been convincing, or else the steward must have listened too faithfully to Chemua’s opinions about her intellect, for he seemed wholly unconcerned with this decision, promising the girl he’d keep all interruptions away from her and her bairn. Once her chambers had been sealed, she left Vehk dozing on her own bed and donned her disguise. 

For her task she’d chosen to adopt the persona of an Indoril petty-noble, seeking revenge against a Nord soldier who’d disgraced her by leaving her with child. She wore her nicer clothes, but made mistakes with them as if she were unaccustomed to Chimer finery: a sash tied wrong, the scarf to hide her hair wrapped without heeding Indorilia cloth-customs. 

She was not overly concerned that her appearance would be recognizable. The mysterious circumstances of her birth and the obscured identity of her father meant that rumours about her bloodline were inevitable; her strong broad jaw, almond-shaped eyes, and distinctive red hair, none of which were shared by her mother, suggested the rumours were more than idle gossip. In court she wore elaborate clothing and exquisite jewelry, and styled her hair so as to draw attention towards her high cheekbones and noble brow, away from her jaw; without these illusions she could’ve been a different mer, one with the occupation written over her face like ink. As much as she loathed this part of herself, she could occasionally use it to her advantage, as she did now. The Chimer rarely spared a second glance for a mixed child, unless the glance was of disdain. 

Little Vehk, at least, seemed wholly unconcern with whatever ‘tainted’ blood may or may not run in her veins, and when she went to collect hir from the bed, ze cooed and grabbed at her scarf. Ze was easy-going and strong for such a young child, and when Almalexia fastened hir to her breast in a swaddle, ze settled there as comfortably as if ze were resting against hir own kin. 

The disguise was complete; the mirror showed Almalexia an awkward and wronged Indoril girl, sad-eyed and demure. She concealed her dagger in her sash, grabbed a light cloak from her dresser to keep off the rain, and disappeared into one of the many secret passageways that riddled the palace walls. 

Her disguise worked well, and Almalexia was able to go about the Eastern District unrecognized, anonymous as she wandered the shabby streets unseen on that gloomy Mundas afternoon. Frustratingly, this also meant that she was given none of the respect she’d grown accustomed to as royalty. 

“I can take you to the Tong,” one of the district’s many orphans had offered her. “Lick my spear and I’ll take you anywhere you want.” His companions had proved equally unhelpful, leering and making obscene comments, and Almalexia considered it a testament to her unending mercy that she hadn’t kicked the urchins square in the face. 

The Eastern District did not fall under the interests of the Nords, who had settled in the Southern quarter of the city, nor did it attract the attention of the Indorils, who clustered around their kinhouse and temples in the West. At its north, near the outer palace walls, dwelt diplomats and emissaries of the other Great Houses, but as one went south, they entered the lawless and troubled rabble that no force in the city cared to govern. An open market of sorts dominated the centre of the district, and radiating from it like poison from a wound were several narrow streets, lined with unsavoury businesses and shady residential complexes constructed to accommodate those entrepreneuring souls that made the Mournhold black market thrive. An outlander might kick up a fuss about such a brazen display of lawlessness, believing the market the core of infamy in the capital; this was naive, for the open market was a mere scab over the murky world below. Mournhold had been built on a conquered Dwemer city, and the Velothi who colonized it had, in rebellion against the decadent Altmeri, deigned to build down, not up. Thus the whole city sat on a froth of rock, the complex of tunnels and chambers that made up the infamous Mournhold Underground, and the wise rulers of Mournhold realized that crime could not be extinguished, only driven down into the warrens. Better to let the villains live on the surface where they could be easily observed, Amun-Shae had reasoned with the Nords, so the Eastern district’s infamy was left to live and thrive. 

The natural exception to this policy was the Morag Tong-- the Nords had no love of assassins-- and though Almalexia could have found any illegal thing she could possibly desire, the forester’s guild remained aggravatingly absent as time went on. By the time she stopped under a Moril tree to feed Vehk from a bottle she’d brought with her, noon had long passed, and she’d not had a single hint as to where she could purchase a writ. 

“Wield the hands of Mephala my…” she murmured, irate, to Vehk. Vehk didn’t respond, focused as ze was on hir lunch; ze, at least, had enjoyed the outing, spending most of it staring out at the world in utter captivation, charming strangers with hir thoughtful stare. 

“Psst!” hissed a voice behind her.

Almalexia flinched and turned-- someone had snuck up behind the tree she leaned against. It was another urchin, perhaps no older than twelve, and he watched Almalexia cautiously. They stared at each other for a moment, and then the urchin jerked his head towards Vehk. “He yours?” 

“Aye,” Almalexia replied, deliberately adopting a commoner’s semi-Nordic accent. “Aye, she’s mine.” 

“What’s her name?” 

“Ah, Kaisa. What of it?” 

“Can I see?” 

Almalexia nodded, and the urchin slid over, peering over her shoulder. 

“She’s pretty,” he murmured. 

“That’s right. Don’t speak too loudly, you’ll spook her.” 

The urchin leaned into Almalexia, and slipped a hand over her shoulder, reaching to Vehk’s face-- a hand, Almalexia realized, was painted black.

“I heard you’re looking for spiders,” said the urchin, still captivated by Vehk, who had by now finished hir meal and stared up at the urchin, unimpressed.

Almalexia didn’t reply to that. Her whole body was tense.

“Who’re you gonna kill?”

Almalexia swallowed, dryly, and bowed her head. “Her father,” she whispered, without looking, as if she were ashamed or troubled by some foul memory. “Kyne forgive me!” 

“Is he a bad man?” 

“He is. He’s evil.” 

“All fathers are evil.”

“Yes.” 

“Come with me, serjo.” 

Almalexia glanced up, and the urchin stood, drawing away from her and bowing deep. Then he turned and ran, and Almalexia scrambled to her feet and chased them, upsetting Vehk in the process. She rounded a corner just in time to see the urchin disappear through a trap-door in the corner up against a wall. 

The trap-door held a ladder that disappeared down into a gloomy tunnel. There was no way she could climb down with a fussing infant swaddled to her breast, so she cast a slow-fall on herself and dropped. When she landed, the urchin was nowhere to be seen. She stood in a long damp passageway that stretched off into darkness on either side, its walls pale mossy brick, but it didn’t appear to be a sewer and its original purpose Almalexia couldn’t begin to guess. Then the urchin returned bearing a torch, and she followed him warily down the long tunnel, one arm around Vehk, the other on the dagger hidden in her sash, until they reached a place where the tunnel ended in a small room. 

This room appeared to have been a control centre for some Dwemeri system, and Almalexia realized belatedly that she’d just walked through an annex of Bamz-Amschend. A rusted and dysfunctional table of panels sat in the centre of the room, connected to an incomprehensible tangle of pipes and tubes that were amassed against the far wall, but it had long ceased to function and appeared to have been repurposed as a desk. In one corner of the room was an odd shrine with a Dwemeri spider strung up over a basin of Nightshade flowers. The shrine was so strange that Almalexia couldn’t help but turn to gawk at it, and in her fascination she failed to notice the slim figure perched on the carcass of the machine. 

“Our aspiring client, I presume?” the figure quipped; the urchin had placed his torch in a sconce and left the room. 

Almalexia flinched in surprise and turned around, bowing her head meekly and wrapping both arms around Vehk. “Aye, serjo. You’re…” she dropped her voice to a whisper, “You’re the Morag Tong, right?” 

Her timidity amused him, and he laughed. “Correct. You’re speaking with the Grandmaster. I presume you have a name for me?” 

“First Commander Fenja. Of the Guild of Shouts.” She looked away from him, as if in shame. “He is-- that fetcher left me with child. Near got me expelled from my House. He said he’d marry me…” 

The Grandmaster seemed unimpressed with the tale. “Writs are not cheap, little girl.” 

“I have a thousand gold, in Nordic coin, and a fine ebony dagger.” 

“I know of Fenja. A capable warrior, in good standing with Mournhold’s court. This is a perilous contract.” 

“I… I can offer two-thousand coins, and I have a ring of House Indoril of great repute, that once belonged to the Queen.”

The Grandmaster sighed, and Almalexia finally looked up at him; he was small, too small to be a Chimer, and he was staring at her with a sad expression. “This isn’t enough,” he said, his pinched faced twisting in sorrow, “For this writ, I will accept only one offer.”

“What offer?” 

“The child you bear.” 

Almalexia had no reply to give to that. She stepped backwards, raising both arms to defend Vehk, as the Grandmaster, with his same grim expression, stood and approached her. 

“Come, Almalexia,” he said, as if pleading with her. “You think we did not witness the child’s birth? They were born with the mark of Mephala. They are her son-daughter, and they belong to me by right.” 

Almalexia took another step back. “I don’t know what you--” . 

“All these threads of destiny,” continued the strange, sorrowful mer, “And you tangle yourself in the wrong ones!” 

“Stay back!”

“Daughter of Boethiah! Vehk was not placed here for you. This is not your story. Yield him!” 

“I warn you, stay away from me!” 

But he continued his advance, with a gleam of fanaticism in his eyes, and Almalexia’s back met the wall. She wrapped both arms over Vehk, one hand going to the sash of her dress. The Grandmaster had come near enough to touch. 

“Come, Vehk!” he cried, lunging, “Watch my movements, and--” 

And he fell to the ground, a dagger’s handle protruding from the base of his throat. 

Almalexia stared as he writhed for a few moments, gasping shallow ugly gasps. She stared, still, as the blood began to pool around him; only when Vehk began to cry did she move, wrapping hir up in her arms, kissing a speck of blood from hir forehead and murmuring assurances.

In the stories she’d read as a girl, the many Nordic skald-tales, murder was always something meaningful. It was grave, literally a matter of life and death, committed by the most daring heroes in the heat of battle with glory in the air, or by the most heinous villains in the dead of night with a heavy heart and tumultuous conscience that threatened to bring near-madness. In the tales murder had importance, poignancy, and could change a person irrevocably; the taking of a life made men of boys and could open the gates to Sovngarde if honourable, or seal them if not. Murder was meant to be profound. 

So Almalexia was surprised to find that she felt very little. Shock, perhaps, but that shock seemed muted and buried deep inside of her, as if it were the shock of some distant observer who’d told her the tale secondhand. The body at her feet seemed far away, her dagger in its throat a work of fiction. She tried to decide what sort of tale this murder would fall into, what its moral would be-- heroic, tragic, folly?-- but she decided, in thoughts that came vague and disjointed, that it was meaningless, mundane; it simply was.

The Grandmaster was still gasping, twitching a little. Almalexia knelt by him, pulled her dagger from his neck, and quickly, trying not to look, cut his throat. The sensation of the blade cutting flesh-fabric made her gag, but he was blessedly silent after that, still, and the queasiness subsided at once. 

Vehk had begun to cry, shrieking in dismay after the upset. Almalexia threw the dagger aside and embraced hir again, rocking the child to calm hir. This would’ve been a stressful day for the small child, she realized with concern, they’d been out far too long and gone through too much excitement for hir little form. Ze must be exhausted.

Taking the torch from the sconce, Almalexia stepped out of the room and began the journey home. 

*** 

Mournhold, when viewed from the top, looked vaguely like a clock, circular and divided into four quarters around a massive circular plaza to the north of the centre. The city was encompassed by a tall thick wall, which was broken by eleven gates at each point where the numbers of the clock might rest. Only the northmost point of the city lacked a gate, for there stood the Mournhold palace, triangular in shape, with towers at the north, east and west corners, and the base of the triangle opening up onto the palace courtyard in a smooth facade festooned with statues and alcoves. The rest of the northern quarter was dominated by the palace complex, its barracks and High Temple and many auxiliary service-buildings. The Western district was neatly-ordered and occupied by the Indoril Kinhouses and temples and council-halls, the Eastern district the den of flagrant crime Almalexia experienced that morning; the Southern district was the youngest district, a residential quarter that grew more crowded and thriving by the day. Each district was separated by a tall sturdy wall, but in a city that stood on labyrinths, no true separation was possible. So, in places, the Southern District had spilled into the Eastern, and the south-eastern section of the city was a confusing jumble of newer Nordic buildings creeping up between older Velothi structures, apartments taking over old streets, markets worming their way into parks, old temple-grounds giving way to trade-halls, and so on, and so forth. 

Azura’s Sanctum had once been part of one such reclaimed Velothi temple. It was a small canton-style building, sitting between two identical replicas of itself that had long been engulfed by the demand for cheap housing and converted into residential blocks. The Sanctum itself, though it stubbornly clung to its status as a religious building, now served as little more than a shelter for the destitute and desperate. Such buildings were as common as they were poorly; the Chimer people had suffered long under the Nord’s yoke, and for every starving priest that opened his doors, there were ten refugees seeking shelter from the brutal oppression of the occupiers, who outside of Mournhold had nothing to restrain them from their meanest whims. 

Sotha Sil kept his collar high and his head low in the dismal place. Beggars and paupers, each one a mer, watched him with expressions wary or tired as he made his way through them and towards a stairwell. He didn’t meet their gazes. The poverty of this place made him nauseous with sympathy; though they dwelled in Azura’s abode, these were not people blessed by the Lady of Roses, and this cramped, stuffy sanctuary only brought to mind Ald Sotha’s seabreeze-swept shrine and joyous dawnlit ministrations, a million miles away from here. 

He shook the thought from his mind and descended the stairs. 

Below the ground floor was a worship-room, a modest chamber decorated in wilting roses and containing a few rough-hewn benches facing a simple elevated shrine. Though it was early afternoon, not yet near enough dusk to begin worship, many faithful sat in the benches with heads bowed as they prayed to Azura for mercy or respite. Sotha Sil paused in the doorway momentarily, unwilling to cross the barrier into the sad scene; he had, once again, been reminded of Ald Sotha’s own shrine, the resplendent crown jewel of Ald Sotha.

House Sotha was an Azura-revering House, faithful to the Prince of Dusk and Dawn since the day Veloth came to his new land. To her they attributed everything, from their renowned wisdom and academic success to their peaceful existence and, as Sotha Sil realized with disquietude, their good fortune in escaping the Nordic occupation. 

Had his family been spared because they worshiped Azura with enough fate? Or had the pitiful mer he saw before him been subjected to a hideous fate only because they did not adequately stoke the Prince’s vanity? 

It was an unsettling question, and before Sil could contemplate it further he was roused by a sharp sob. One of the worshippers, a gaunt woman dressed in rags, had doubled over and began to weep into her own knees. Sotha Sil rushed to her side without thinking, offering her a handkerchief from his pocket; she took it and stared at him with dull eyes, as if not fully understanding the sight of him, murmuring Azura’s name over and over. He put a few coins on the bench beside her and hastily moved on. 

He found the head priest in a small study adjacent to the shrine. A bald elderly mer with sagging ears, clad in simple clothes unbefitting someone of his holy station, he had his head bent and was focused so intently on writing a letter that he did not notice Sotha Sil enter. When Sotha Sil announced himself with a gentle word, however, he looked up and smiled a warm and reverent smile. “A new face, sera! Azura smiles upon me today.” 

Sotha Sil bowed reverently. “You speak to Sotha Sil of House Sotha, muthsera. Court Wizard to the Queen Almalexia. May we speak?”

“Discard your formality, Sil. Sit, sit. I believe I already know why you’ve come.” 

The priest, with dignified Velothi hospitality, started a brew of comberry over a small magika-fueled hearth in the corner. While Sotha Sil sat politely on a lumpy cushion beside a low table in the corner, the priest informed him of all he knew about Vehk’s poor mother: 

She’d come to Mournhold around a couple of weeks before her death. She was, as Almalexia had feared, greatly affected by soul-sickness; she shunned any attempts to communicate with her, shrieked and wept when the priests approached her, shuddered away from touch, would not let her wounds be tended. It had taken many hours, but the priest himself had managed to earn her trust, and he had coaxed from her the few coherent sentences she ever spoke: she had told him that she was a netchiman’s wife, from Bal Fell. This latter fact alarmed Sotha Sil-- Bal Fell was a prosperous fishing village not far from Ald Sotha, and he’d seen the netchimen and fishermer hawking their wares on the streets more often than he could recall. He couldn’t imagine such a pitiful creature coming from the tranquil island. 

Those few bare facts were all the priest could offer Sotha Sil, for they represented all he could ever get from her. She was a netchiman’s wife from Bal Fell. He had never even learned her name. 

In return for the information, Sotha Sil informed him that the woman’s baby was healthy and positively doted upon. The priest, just like every other citizen of Mournhold, had heard of Vehk’s fortuitous birth into the new Queen’s arms, and of the netchiman’s wife’s demise; he expressed deep regret that the woman had died, and an equally deep relief that Vehk had found hir way into the arms of such a loving guardian. According to him, the baby had been the only concern of the mad-woman; her long, rambling prayers had focused on its safety, imploring the Daedra for whatever divine protection they might deign to give.

“She died for that child,” said the priest softly, his cup by then long-emptied of its brew. “I pray her sacrifice was not in vain.” 

Sotha Sil had listened with his typical quiet contemplation, head bowed and eyes fixed on his own untouched cup of tea. “I pity her,” he murmured. “She should not have died. I should have been able to devise something, when I aided her, or else systems should have been in place…” 

“Do not torment yourself for her fate, sera. Nirn is full of struggles, our lives are long and hard.” 

“But she came to Azura’s temple for protection! She must have known she was sick. Something should have been done.” 

The priest gave him a long look, full of sympathy. “What would you have done?” 

“Found a healer to attend her more closely, perhaps. Have someone watch her, maybe, so that when her time came she was not left to wander away! There must have been some way, somehow...” Sotha Sil trailed off, clenching his eyes shut in a feeble attempt to banish the images of a bloodied body so fresh in his mind’s eye. 

The event had stayed with him, plaguing his thoughts, and he had convinced himself that the blame for her death lay solely with his failure to prevent it. When faced with tragedy, it was easier for him to tell himself he could have averted it if only he’d applied the proper techniques; a failure of his own skills was easier to bear, in his mind, than the idea that he was powerless against the whims of fate. 

“Child of Azura,” the priest sighed. “I pray for your generation. All you who were too young to watch the Nords come. You do not know how... far the Velothi have fallen. Did you look around, when you came in? It is no accident the netchiman’s wife came here. Mournhold is an orphanage. All such broken creatures crawl through the gates, seeking safety, seeking mercy.”

“I know.” 

“If the healers attended her the way you insist, ten more would have been neglected--”

“I know, I know! I know this all.” Sotha Sil pressed his fingers to his forehead. “I know I was thinking with my heart rather than my head, I’m sorry. I simply-- I feel pity for them all. I want to fix this, I want to help them, and it pains me when I can’t. I cannot understand why it must be this way.” 

The priest sighed. “That is your youth, again, you trying to understand it. Pain rarely has meaning, tragedy never serves a purpose.”

“Then it should be prevented. I want to prevent it.” 

“You have a noble heart. Alas that it is rarely so simple! To prevent tragedy, one must stop what causes it, and in those days that would take an army, a king, a great revolution. And even if it were not the Nords, it would be the Princes...” Again the priest sighed, his bald head drooping. “Veloth taught us pain does serve a purpose. All strife leads towards enlightenment, so the Velothi must cherish hardship. Perhaps my faith wanes, but it seems… pointlessly cruel, to expect Mournhold’s orphans to strive towards glory. I only want to comfort them.”

The sudden display of despair from one of Azura’s faithful disquieted Sotha Sil. “It is not forever,” he said hastily, trying to speak with confidence. “There are good rulers, rulers who will fix things. You call Mournhold an orphanage, but it’s not without its warden. And, ah-- speaking of her, I ought to return to the palace.” 

“The orphanage has its warden,” agreed the priest. “And orphans do well when she provides clothing, food… charitable donations, as it were…” 

“Of course, muthsera, all mer deserve that much.”

Sotha Sil made to stand, but the priest grabbed both hands with his own, pressing him and looking up at him imploringly. “You don’t understand my meaning, sera. This orphanage struggles to provide for its orphans. I have drafted a letter to the palace, asking for funds, and if you would take it to the queen I’d be much obliged…” 

… It was an hour from dusk when Sotha Sil returned to the palace. All his appetite had left him, and he had no desire to chance an encounter with the aggravating Indorils or the overbearing Nords, so he went straight to his chambers. His father had returned by then and was busy packing a trunk. This task he put aside when his son returned, and they sat together by one of the tower’s broad windows, sharing a jug of sujamma as Sotha Sil recounted all he had learned of the netchiman’s wife. 

“Bal Fell?” Sotha Sohleh mused, tapping his finger against the table between them. “They’re under Ald Sotha’s protection. I get news from there whenever the netchimen come by.” 

“Did you ever hear of a soul-sick woman with child?” 

“You’ve heard all that I have, Sil, you spend more time at the markets than I do. I heard of a few pregnancies, but no soul-sickness, no. Still,” he pressed his hand flat. “It would take no more than a day to bring the child there, and make inquiries. Bal Fell is small and close-knit, and I’m sure _someone_ would have noticed a netchiman whose wife had suddenly disappeared.”

Sotha Sil, whose eyes had thusfar been focused out the window and on the city beyond, gave his father a glance. “You would take Vehk?”

“Why not? It would save you a trip.”

“But you leave tomorrow.” 

“Yes.” 

Sil’s eyes went back out the window. “Almalexia won’t be happy.” 

His words made Sohleh laugh, gently. “Yes, I know, she’s grown quite fond of the child. But you’re away from your siblings, too, and is that pain not as great? You and she can console each other over it.”

“A great pain, yes…” Sotha Sil thumbed the rim of his cup, and then admitted, without thinking: “I wish I were going with you! There’s so much suffering here. At least in Ald Sotha I can fix what goes wrong.” 

Sohleh reached over, then, and pressed a hand warmly to Sil’s shoulder. “All will be well,” he promised. “You are too sheltered in Ald Sotha, Mournhold would be good for you. What use is it to lock yourself up in a pleasant world? A waste of a brilliant mind, that’s what it would be, and no use at all! You will do well here. Do not worry about suffering, for Azura arranges everything with purpose, and she will reveal your purpose here in time.” 

With that Sohleh stood, squeezed Sil’s shoulder, and turned. “And I? I will get some rest. There’s much to prepare before I set off.” 

So Sotha Sil bid his father goodbye, and after a moment’s gloomy contemplation of the city beyond the window, stood and went to find Almalexia. Dwelling on thoughts of Ald Sotha and its idyllic vassal islands was too painful to bear, so he forced them away and tried to focus on the present. 

It would be much later-- too late, in fact-- that he turned his mind back to Bal Fell, and wondered what in that village the netchiman’s wife had strove to protect her child from. 

***

Almalexia wept without restraint as she bid Vehk goodbye, and Sotha Sil, too, found himself fighting tears as he exchanged his parting words with his father. It was the afternoon of Sotha Sohleh’s departure, and as they stood at the edge of the strider-port on Mournhold’s northmost wall, there suddenly seemed too much left to say. Sotha Sil busied himself with delivering a list of urgent instructions-- (“Make sure mother doesn’t worry herself too much; tell Serlyn to stay away from the Dwemer outposts; Kaisa wants a bow for her birthday, please get one for her; tell Grandmother I love her, that I think of her often…”)-- struggling to keep his voice steady even as his father vowed to uphold every one. The members of House Sotha were reserved, or so went their reputation, but the bonds between them were stronger than ebony, and at that moment neither father nor son were embarrassed to express their affections. 

“Ensure that he sleeps enough,” Almalexia instructed Sohleh, through tears, when he finally turned to her. She had not fought with Sotha Sil when he’d delivered news of Vehk’s imminent departure-- she’d seemingly spent the whole evening in a daze, in fact, still and aloof in that way she became when she couldn’t cope with the strength of her own emotion-- but the fugue had now broken, and with it the floodgates, and she was weeping more strongly than Sotha Sil had ever seen her weep. “The nursemaid prepared food, enough for a day or so, it’s in this bag, but if you need more I… I’ve written the formula down… and I have a letter that she, that he… that Vehk may read when he’s old enough… it’s an invitation to come visit me, come stay--” Her voice broke off, her body crumpling, and Sotha Sil went to wrap an arm around her. Sohleh, face contorted with sympathy, touched her shoulder and vowed on Azura’s name that he would see Vehk returned to a safe and happy home. 

Then Almalexia, briefly biting back her sobs, bent her head and kissed Vehk on the face for what would perhaps be the final time. By now Vehk had realized something was amiss, and when Almalexia’s tears dropped onto hir cheeks, ze began to cry, reaching out for her face even as she offered hir out to Sohleh. She trembled, and Sotha Sil tightened his grip on her-- then Sohleh took the infant, and she flung herself onto Sotha Sil and pressed her face into his shoulder, weeping. Sotha Sil embraced her fully and his father averted his eyes from them out of respect.

Vehk, too, was bawling, and Sohleh rocked hir before returning his attention to his son. “I am so proud of you, Sil,” he said. “I know you’ll do well here. And look after Almalexia, you know she’s like a daughter to me!” 

“And a sister to me.” Sotha Sil gave the inconsolable Queen a brief pat on the back. “All is well here, father, I won’t fail you. Just… look after Vehk. And look after Ald Sotha. Look after our family! I know I don’t have to tell you that, but-- Azura’s grace, all I’ve ever done is for our House. My family. Please don’t let them suffer while I’m gone.” 

“I did alright for a couple of centuries before you came along, didn’t I?”

“I guess so.” Sotha Sil tried to smile, but his own tears could no longer be restrained, and the smile was a pale one. “Well… farewell then, father, for now.” 

He eased out of Almalexia’s grip and seized Sohleh in a tight embrace. Then Almalexia croaked, “Wait.” She fumbled with the clasp at her throat, then pulled her light summer-cloak off from over the modest Nordic gown she wore, only to drape it around Sotha Sohleh’s shoulders. “It smells like me,” she explained, embarrassed, attempting to smile through her tears, “You can use it to comfort him… her… Vehk, if you need it. And there’s a spell, from my ancestors, Ayem ae Sehti ae Vehk, you… if you sing it, it soothes her, him… Maybe he’ll--” she broke off, shuddered, and threw herself back into Sotha Sil’s arms, pressing her face into his shoulder and dissolving into sobs once more. Sohleh dutifully draped the garment about himself, and Vehk, crying still, reached out for the familiar garment. 

Then they’d hopped on the silt-strider and it was done; the two were traveling away from the palace, their departure marked by the sound of Sotha Sohleh shouting farewells and Vehk’s cries. Sotha Sil held Almalexia tight and watched them in vain, watched as they headed north and then west, until they’d shrunk against the vast plantations of the Deshaan and disappeared into the rocky distance. 

So they stood for a long time, embracing in silence save for Almalexia’s soft sobbing. 

It felt like an eternity had passed when Almalexia pulled away from him. Sil moved to the edge of the wall, searching the horizon in vain for some final glimpse of his father, knowing it was futile and yet looking anyway. The homesickness that had been with him perpetually had become almost too much to bear.

“All will be well,” Sotha Sil finally said. He tore his gaze away from the northern road and turned to Almalexia. “Father will--” 

He fell silent in sheer surprise. Almalexia was undressing, shedding her Nordic-style dress to reveal a more Chimeri (but utterly immodest!) short loincloth and midriff-baring chestpiece ensemble underneath. Even as he stared, she was pulling her hair out of its elaborate stylings, letting it fall loose down her back. 

Before Sotha Sil could even begin to form a question, Almalexia thrust her discarded gown into his arm. “Hide these,” she ordered, her voice still raw with tears, “Then return to the palace. Tell Chemua that I couldn’t bring myself to part with Vehk so soon. Tell him-- tell him I’ve accompanied your father to Bal Fell, that I wanted to make sure Vehk was going to a good family. I’ll be back in three days.” 

“Ayem,” Sotha Sil replied, “What in Oblivion are you doing--” 

But she strategically left him with no time to argue; she turned heel and ran into a nearby guard’s tower, leaving him stunned in his place. 

***

For lesser men, a Housecarl was a bodyguard, responsible for protecting his liege and their property with life and limb. For a Nordic Tongue, who could end lives with a syllable and needed personal protection as much as a guar needed a claymore, a Housecarl served instead as the head of his domestic military affairs. This was the role served by First Commander Fenja, the brazen young man given the title of Housecarl by Chemua and thus holding official command of the Guild of Shouts. 

Frankly speaking, if Fenja had been left to earn his station by his own virtues, he would have been good for little more than a stable-boy. But he was of clan Mud-Mouth, the clan of Hoag Mer-Killer, and this required that he be given a lofty title appropriate for kin to the Jarl of Ebonheart. Hoag’s pawning him off on Chemua had been an admitted stroke of genius. Mournhold had _two_ standing Nordic militias, Chemua’s retinue and the Guild of Shouts; the former was under the direct command of Chemua in the rare instances it was raised, and the latter was kept under such careful control by the Queen that they could function adequately even if the station of First Commander were given to a drunken incompetent lout. 

So, naturally, the drunken incompetent lout called Fenja was shoved off into that position, and Fenja, who fancied himself a soldier, enjoyed a title that he thought befit ‘a warrior of his stature’, blissfully unaware that he served no purpose whatsoever, save, perhaps, giving the Second Commander a headache. His primary function was to authorize punishments and order marches, and those things he only did when he was sober enough to relay whatever Chemua thought the Guild should be doing. 

Fenja often commemorated his various ‘accomplishments’ in a local Nord-style tavern near the palace walls in the eastern district, using his ‘hard-earned glory’ to get discounts on ale and whores. Sure as Masser crossed the sky each night, there he was, and in high spirits; the departure of Sotha Sohleh marked the end of pesky diplomat-protection shifts, and an end to the amount of times he had to ‘aye’ and ‘nay’ the Second Commander’s special rosters. He was, of course, celebrating the relaxation of his already lax obligations by getting outrageously drunk. The tavern was lively, thick with Nords and the Chimeri periphery trying to profit off of them, and Fenja had planted himself in a corner, being plied with endless ale by some clerk trying, misguidedly, to earn favours in Mournhold’s court. 

“You had to be there,” Fenja boasted to an audience that was only half-listening to him. The theme of the night had been war-stories, and having no triumphs of his own to boast of, he was trying to pass off the few battles that he’d witnessed as personal achievements. “Kastav, at Kastav, I say. Kastav! The starving plain, they call it now, ahah! You’ve not seen the might of the Nords until you’ve seen a Tongue wield his thu’um, in all his might. I saw it that day, you louts, have you ever had such an honour, you soft-seated Deshaan pansies?” 

The two warriors whose conversation he’d been trying to interject in looked over. They were true Nord warriors, veterans of the civil war, and Fenja’s lofty title couldn’t impress them, nor persuade them to so much as tolerate the brazen youth. 

“Aye,” said one, humorously, “Saw them play _thu’um-tharum_ once. The big one blew up a shuttlecock. Bet Kastav didn’t have _four_ Tongues all shouting, did it, pup?” 

Fenja scoffed at that, tossing back his unkempt mane of chesnut hair. “Thu’um-tharum! Bah, I--”

“Tell us of Kastav, my lord!” interjected a clerk, the skinny pale-faced Winterholder who’d been trying to earn Fenja’s good graces, as he pressed another mug of ale into Fenja’s hands. “It must’ve been a mighty battle!” 

“T’wasn’t a battle,” said one of the warriors gruffly. “While Mjorla was defeated at the fort, Chemua blighted the fields, nobody won and a famine--” 

“Kastav!” roared Fenja, having sculled the ale. “A mighty, glorious day for the rightful King Hanse and his loyal men! While noble Mjorla tricked Olaf’s forces into a takeover of Fort Kastav-- which was futile, foolish!-- Jarl Chemua made a daring run across the field on his mighty steed, spreading behind him a blight! All of the Whiterun traitors starved that winter, all their crops died, all of them!” 

At this the other warrior, a robust blond man, slammed his hand on the table to get Fenja’s attention. “Hey, kiss-arse! Another word about _Jarl Chemua_ and I’ll be sick, shut up!” 

“Kiss-arse!” scoffed Fenja, indignantly. “You speak to the First Commander of the Shouts, the Housecarl of the esteemed Jarl! The honourable, mighty--” 

“Honour?” the first warrior backed up his companion. “There’s no honour in poison! No honour in ruining crops! That elf-bairn wretch wouldn’t know honour if it mauled him.” 

Fenja, drunk and blushing, rose unsteadily to his feet. “Watch your tongues, outlanders! Or _my_ Tongue will make you pay, make you pay like he made the elf-queen pay!” 

“Which elf-queen?” asked the warrior, which made his blond companion scoff on his drink. “The new one, you mean? The girl-wench? Why’s your mighty Chemua sharing throne with an elf? Doesn’t seem very mighty to me.” 

“I’ll tell you why,” said the blonde one. “It’s as they say in High Rock, ‘A man’s like a marionette, ‘cept instead of strings the puppeteer tugs, it’s his--’” 

Both warriors broke into roaring laughter. “Aye, aye! She’s a pretty little thing, that’s what’s got him soft--”

“If I were him, I’d be anything _but_ soft!” 

“But he’s that sort, isn’t he? Harlot. I heard a limerick, hey, Fenja, it’s an elfish limerick, too. ‘There was a Jarl Chemua, a perfectly rotten n’wah, he drank too much ale, woke up in a stable, and found that he’d married a guar!’” 

At this point poor Fenja drew his sword and lunged at the warriors with an indignant roar. He was so drunk, however, that he missed his mark by about a foot, and he moved so sluggishly that both the experienced men saw his attack coming far before he made it; one stepped to the side, while the other quickly knocked him down, struck a blow across his face, and shoved him back into his chair. 

“Sit down, pup!” barked the warrior who’d struck him. “Back in your place.” 

The clerk had fled in the scuffle, and both warriors returned to each other’s company, ignoring the fuming Fenja, who obediently slunk back into the shadows to nurse his bruised jaw. His face was red and he was indignant with his hurt pride, but even the drunken man knew that trying to challenge the warriors would end poorly for him. 

“Ale,” called out Fenja irately, “Another ale! Where’s that sapling?” 

Someone pressed a tankard into his hands, but it wasn’t the clerk who plied him, this time. A soft, plump form slipped over his knee, straddling his thigh, and a pair of soft hands cradled his face. “Oh, my poor, brave warrior,” a woman crooned, “What have they done to you?”

A daughter of Mephala, Fenja realized, one of the honey-skinned, scantily-clad Chimeri girls who used their bodies to swindle hard-earned coins out of honest Nord pockets. This one looked familiar, but she was one of those coy ones, the top of her face hidden by a spider-silk veil and obscured by his own drunkenness beside. One of the whores he’d had before, Fenja decided, but he was in no mood to be picky, and her advances soothed his wounded pride. 

“I saw your fight,” she was saying, “And I think you’re very brave, standing up for the Jarl like you did. I do love a man with honour.” 

Fenja slurred a laugh and dragged his hand up the elf’s thigh. “I _am_ brave. I’m an important man, you know, First Commander and Housecarl of the Jarl.” 

“How strong you must be,” the girl murmured, leaning into him. “I’ve always wanted to bed an important man. A mighty Nord hero with his mighty, ah…” she trailed off, shuddering, when Fenja’s hand reached the top of her leg. 

If Fenja had been a little more sober, a little less naive, a little more experienced, he might have noticed that she was tense and unsteady and not at all like the other Daughters of Mephala he’d met in the past. But Fenja, like so many of his kind, had grown comfortable and confident in the occupation. Never would he or his kind consider that a Chimer could pose a threat to him, and this would prove his undoing. 

Fenja did not see the warriors he’d quarreled with as his night’s catch lead him up the tavern’s narrow staircase, nor did they notice him. He ceased to notice much at all, when she pulled him into her rented room, small and cozy with a large bed in the centre. He went for her immediately, catching her arm and pulling her veil off to kiss her, but she squirmed out of his grasp and instead lay her body along his. “Patience,” she murmured, nipping at the skin below his ear when she did, and this time when he grabbed her, she did not resist. He kissed her hungrily for a moment, and then she squirmed away again, twirling away from him, towards the side of the bed. 

Frustrated, Fenja lunged at her, pushing her onto the bed. They kissed again, and then she rolled him over, so that she was on top of him and straddling his belly. “You’re dressed,” she chided him. “Let me take care of that for you.” 

He exhaled and tilted his head back, regarding her through half-lidded eyes as she made her way down his body, her hands moving from the top of his tunic down to his belt. “Wait,” he murmured. “You’re...” 

“Shh,” she replied. “Chemua doesn’t know about this, I came in secret.” 

Fenja propped himself up, but she darted back up, pushing him down by the shoulder and kissing him again. 

“It’s not fair, you know,” she whispered, “Nobody gives you the respect you deserve. Not even Chemua. Why should he get all the glory, all the fun?”

“Nay, but… But _you’re_ …” 

“Lie back and close your eyes. I wouldn’t do this for a lesser man. Only you.” 

Fenja breathed a laugh, leaning back, closing his eyes, trying to fight off dizziness; through a bleary mind he felt warm, soft hands sliding down his bare chest, slim fingers trailing down his belly, down to his belt, down to the grip of his sword-- 

Down to the grip of his _literal sword_ , and drunken Fenja wouldn’t realize that she’d pulled it out of the sheath until a moment too late, and by then the blade has cut his throat and he no longer had the breath to scream. 

The first cut had been messy. Fenja thrashed, made a gasping sound through the wreckage of his neck-- Almalexia pinned him with a knee to his stomach, and stabbed again, and again, and again, until the body below her was still. Then she stabbed him once more for good measure, and another for revenge. 

She sat there, for a few moments, breathing hard. Fenja no longer moved; his ruddy face stared sightless up at the ceiling. 

Almalexia dropped the sword and pulled herself off of him. She raised her hand to wipe the blood from her face and realized that it was shaking. Nords had a lot of blood, she thought to herself, though the thoughts were strange and distant; they were big, they had a lot of muscle, stabbing him had taken more effort than she’d expected. Up close, Fenja looked a lot like Hoaga, with a flat nose and small menacing teeth. She hadn’t expected that, either. 

She walked over to the door and pressed her ear against it. There was silence in the immediate hallway, and the sounds of a lively cornerclub further on. She crossed to the window instead; beyond the night was dark, an incoming rainshower choking the moons and filling the air with a rich earthy smell. In the idle fantasies of this moment she’d envisioned herself making a dashing escape through the window, like an assassin in one of the books she’d read as a child, but she found that the window was clasped shut and her limbs were too unsteady to wrest it open. How strange, that she shook so, how strange that her arms would not obey her fully. She was forced to make a rather more mundane departure: she tucked her bloodied hands in front of her bloodied chest, ducked her head so that her loose hair would hide her bloodied face, stepped into the hallway, and bolted through the door.

Nobody waylaid her as she left, nor seemed to much notice her; the working-girls of the cornerclubs were the most invisible of Mournhold’s orphans, so easily forgotten, looked down upon or not seen at all. Still, she didn’t stop running once she’d left the tavern. She ran through Mournhold’s dark streets, in silence save her ragged breathing and the sound of bare feet on cobbles, north until she found the palace wall and then west until she nearly tripped over a sewer grate in the darkness. Here she finally stopped, knelt, wrenched it open, and, like so many villains before her, disappeared into the sewers. 

The roots of a guard’s tower opened up into the tunnel a short distance west of that grate. Someone was waiting at the stairwell, a dim torch in hand, and as Almalexia drew close to them they turned to face her. “Lexie?” Heigl called, peering past the edge of her torchlight. “Who goes there?”

“It’s me,” Almalexia replied. She was breathless, panting from the long run, and her voice shook. “It’s me, Heigl.”

“Finally! I’ve been waiting for a…” the Shout trailed off. “My gods, girl, are you hurt? What’s happened!” 

“It’s okay, it’s not my blood. Did you bring the clothes?” 

“What do you mean it’s not-- whose blood is it, then? Oh, by the eight, it isn’t--”

“Heigl,” Almalexia said, voice thin. “You’re my guard, not my mother! Did you bring the clothes or not?” 

Heigl kicked a crate near her feet, and Almalexia slumped against it, finally giving in to the adrenaline; she lost control of her body, shaking all over and clutching the side of the crate.

“Gods,” Heigl said, near-hysterical, “You didn’t-- Gods, Almalexia!”

“You knew he had to die, Heigl. Don’t lose your nerve now!” 

“I never thought you’d do it yourself! Oh, Orkey save you, girl, a murder! What if Chemua finds out?” 

“He _won’t_.” Weakly Almalexia reached into the crate, rummaging around it until she found a length of cloth. When she found it, she staggered to her feet and went to the deep canal that flowed along the far side of the tunnel, the remnants of a creek that had once crossed the land here. 

Heigl stood to the side, hands pressed to her mouth, breathing shallowly and watching as Almalexia used the cloth and the foul water to wash blood from her skin. “Oh, my dear girl,” she said miserably, “I wish you would’ve--”

“I am your _queen_ , Heigl. Do not dare chastise me!” 

“No, I wish you’d let me do it! I know he needed to die, but I wish you hadn’t dirtied yourself so! Murder’s a foul crime.” 

“Did you bring the supplies I asked of you?” 

“Aye, all of it, but--” 

“Bring me the uniform.” 

Heigl obediently brought over a bundle of clothing and dropped it by Almalexia’s side. She stood up stiffly, having scrubbed what blood she could from herself; parts of her golden skin remained tinged pink. She began to strip her bloody garments off of herself, and Heigl looked away politely. 

“It’s not right,” Heigl said again, “It’s not honourable. I know we hadn’t a choice, but--” 

“Did you speak to Khizumet’e?” 

“Yes, I did, he-- Oh, but by Kyne, he knew about this, didn’t he? He was talking about the First Commander being disposed of, I thought he just meant indisposed of, but--” Heigl shuddered. “You conspired with him!” 

Almalexia, halfway through donning a tunic, laughed. “I conspired with you, too, didn’t I? Heigl, focus! Once the news comes about Fenja you’ll need to march immediately, before Chemua can appoint a new housecarl.”

“It’s not right, Lexie. It’s not honourable. It’s not--” 

“What is honourable!” Almalexia finally snapped, the shaking besetting her again, and she turned on Heigl, half-dressed and her voice raising. “Taking Morrowind from us was not honourable! Treating us the way the Nords treat us is not honourable! What Chemua has done is not honourable-- and you alone know the true extent of that!-- so yes, murder is foul, but in my eyes, after all that has been done to my people, Fenja ought to consider it a great mercy that I _only_ murdered him!” 

With that outburst, Almalexia doubled over, hiding her face in her hands, before she suddenly rushed over to the crate and began to rummage around. Not a moment had passed before Heigl walked to her and embraced her. 

“Lexie…” 

“He killed my mother,” her voice was muffled, her face hidden in one hand. “He killed her. How is that honourable?” 

“The sujamma’s with the rest of the supplies, back in my house,” Heigl replied in a gentle murmur. “Do yourself a favour, girl, go there while you lie low, it’ll be safer than these sewers.”

“Heigl, you don’t need to...” 

“You asked me to trust you, Lex, but I’m asking you to trust me too. You don’t have to fight me. And you don’t have to do this alone.” Heigl kissed her cheek, then caught her gaze, giving her a pale smile. “We’re like family, remember? You can trust me, I’ve got your back. You don’t have to fight him alone. I’ll look out for you, but you’ve got to trust your family.” 

Almalexia returned the embrace, face pressed hard into her shoulder, and Heigl pretended not to notice that her queen was weeping, or that there was still blood in her hair. “Thank you.” 

***

“I’ve told you,” Sotha Sil said, for the fifth time that morning, “She went to Ald Sotha with my father.”

That answer didn’t seem to please Chemua, who paced restlessly around the throne-room like some sort of caged beast. Sotha Sil had been diligently avoiding the man since Almalexia’s departure-- with her absence, he had begun to more fully appreciate her astounding diplomacy, for Chemua was as unpredictable as he was intimidating, and placating him was nigh-impossible-- but with Fenja’s murder and the immediate departure of the Shouts alongside Dres Khizumet’e, and no Queen on whom he could focus his wrath, the malevolent Jarl had finally succeeded in hunting down Sotha Sil for interrogation. Sotha Sil hadn’t wavered, nervous as Chemua made him; it didn’t take a genius to work out what Almalexia had done, but nothing could be proven definitively, and he wouldn’t betray her. 

“And she couldn’t…” Chemua waved his hands, searching for words, “Come back, in secret, somehow? Using some spell.” 

“Her amulet of recall is set to this Throne-room, I enchanted it myself. If she used it--”

“But there are other spells. Aren’t there? Damn it, I’m not a mage, am I?” As Chemua spoke the ground beneath Sotha Sil’s feet rumbled, waves of barely-restrained thu’um rolling up his metal legs. 

Sotha Sil shrugged. “I would be surprised if she knew any other spells. She’s not… magically inclined, if you get my meaning.”

“You mean she’s simple.” 

_Ayem, forgive me._ “I think it’s more likely that she let her emotion get the better of her and went with my father, than it is that she used magic to murder Fenja. I think that’s more like the sort of woman she is.” 

The subtle insult soothed Chemua momentarily, and he bowed his head in thought, though his aggravated pacing didn’t slow. Sotha Sil took a deep breath and wondered whether he could defeat a thu’um-wielder in single combat. 

“You,” Chemua finally said, turning his attention to a different Chimer; this one was a Shout, one of the few mer permitted to join the guild, an older, experienced warrior who went by the name Mora Valyn. 

Valyn bowed his head. “Jarl.” 

“How goes the investigation? Have you found the wench that did it?” 

“Not yet, Jarl. Rumour around the tavern is that he was attacked by a Daughter of Mephala. He was seen going upstairs with a Chimeri woman, but we haven’t been able to locate her.” 

“Have you been searching?” 

“With all due respect, Jarl, have you been to the eastern quarters? The Daughters of Mephala come and disappear with the subtlety of the Webspinner herself. The murderess is likely halfway to Vvardenfell.” 

Chemua made an irritated noise. “Fenja, you fool,” he murmured to himself. “I told him not to trust the elves. The stupid boy.” 

A tense silence fell on the throne room. Sotha Sil glanced at Valyn, who was watching impassively as Chemua paced. 

“Well,” Chemua finally said, drawing to a halt. His attention landed on Sotha Sil. “Well.”

Sotha Sil tried to hold his gaze. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he uttered. 

This sentiment seemed to catch him off-guard and he paused. 

“It really is sad news,” Sotha Sil added, voice thin. 

“Yes,” Chemua frowned. “It is.” 

Before the awkward exchange could progress any further, a soft _whoosh_ announced the trigger of a recall spell. And there appeared the source of the morning’s strife: Almalexia, dressed in a light sumer-dress, smiling and seemingly unaware of what sort of drama she’d just caused 

“My Jarl,” she said warmly, to Chemua. Then, when she saw the strange company assembled around her, she trailed off and glanced around. “... Am I interrupting something?” 

Chemua cast a glance at the others in the room, and then returned his attention to Almalexia. “ _Fenja lost kriivah,_ ” he said, and then continued speaking in the guttural draconic language used occasionally by the Tongues. Sotha Sil was unfamiliar with the language, but Almalexia had been raised in the occupation and was fluent in it; she frowned and pressed her hands to her mouth, and replied to Chemua in the same coarse tongue. The two began to converse. 

Though the meaning of their conversation eluded to Sotha Sil, he didn’t need to understand their words for his own question to be answered. Almalexia’s expression was that of grief, her hands near her face as if she were shocked or distraught, but he knew her well enough to recognize that she wasn’t at all surprised by the news, and that her distress was a carefully-planned act. 

“The Morag Tong,” Almalexia switched back into Aldmeris suddenly. “Khizumet’e said they’d set up in the Eastern district. It must have been them. _Nahkriin fah rok_ , Chemua, they will pay for Fenja’s murder. Once the Shouts return I’ll order that the Tong be rooted out. I won’t abide murderers in my city!” 

“My city,” Chemua replied quietly. “I want these… daughters of Mephala driven out, too. See it done for me.”

“Of course, _thuri_.” Almalexia bowed. “My mother was too lenient on them. I won’t make her mistakes.”

The expression on Chemua’s face was strange and dark, and Sotha Sil found that he couldn’t contain his mounting anxiety any longer. “Ahem,” he interjected, stepping forwards, “Jarl, may Almalexia and I be excused? I’m eager to hear of Ald Sotha, and she must be tired.” 

Chemua and Almalexia both cast him a glance, but the tense moment passed; Chemua simply nodded and touched Almalexia’s shoulder before turning away. “ _Nahkriin fah Fenja, mal fahliil._ _Nust fent sosaal._ ” 

“ _Nahkriin_ ,” Almalexia murmured in reply, walking to Sotha Sil and taking his arm. Then, without a farewell to the Jarl, the two of them turned and departed the room.

Neither said anything to each other, but by some unspoken agreement they went to Sotha Sil’s tower, arm in arm and both looking ahead, lost in thought. Only when they were behind the closed doors of his chambers did Almalexia turn to him.

“He gave me control of the Shouts,” she said, breaking into a smile. “Did you hear? ‘See it done’. The Shouts are mine.”

Sotha Sil took a deep breath and forced himself to meet Almalexia’s eyes. “Did you have Fenja murdered?” 

Almalexia answered without hesitating. “I didn’t.” 

“Ayem! Don’t lie to me, please.”

“I’m not lying. I didn’t have Fenja murdered, I murdered him myself.” 

Sotha Sil exhaled, tugging at his hair. “Ah.” And with that, he sat down on the bed, hiding his face in his hands. “Ah, Ayem.” 

A long moment, and he felt Almalexia sit next to him, close enough that they were touching. 

And they sat like that for several minutes, in silence. 

“What are you trying to prove?” Sotha Sil asked, finally. 

“What do you mean?”

“Why did you murder him?” 

“Because I need control of the Shouts, and he would have thwarted me.” 

“You could have had him assassinated.” 

“I wanted to do it myself.” Almalexia had been speaking without emotion, as calmly as if she were explaining her choice of clothing, but she wouldn’t meet his eyes and kept her face averted. “I wanted to know whether I could take a man’s life, if I had to, because Chemua wants me dead and one day he’ll run out of patience. I wanted to do it myself because I had to know if I could. And now I know.”

Sotha Sil didn’t reply to that, but ran his hands through his hair, which he wore long and loose. 

For a while longer no words passed between them.

“I’ve made a mistake,” Almalexia finally murmured. 

“You can’t call a murder a ‘mistake’. A mistake is spilling ink or performing a spell wrong, not--”

“No, Seht, I made a mistake in letting you stay. You should have gone back to Ald Sotha.” 

Sotha Sil glanced to his side. Almalexia still refused to look at him, and her gaze fixed on the city beyond, which seemed bright and pristine in the morning’s light. 

“Life is hard here,” she continued, voice soft. “Ald Sotha is a paradise in comparison. I always envied your paradise. What Mournhold is like, what the Nords are like, what I must do to survive here… I should never have asked you to stay. I won’t apologize for murdering him, and I won’t apologize for anything I do for Mournhold, but I shouldn’t have asked you to stay.” 

Sotha Sil let out a breath. “Why did you ask?” 

“Because you’re a dear friend to me. Because I trust you, because I respect your opinion and your counsel.”

“Will you accept my counsel now?” 

Almalexia looked over at him, curiously, and Sotha Sil took her hand in his own.

“Having the Shouts on your side is a good step,” he said, “But it’s not enough to stop there. You’ll have even more power if you earn the love of the populace, too. There’s a lot of charity work that needs done, and you should be the one to do it. Greater rulers than Chemua have fallen because they underestimated the power of discontented citizens.” 

For a moment Almalexia stared at him, as if confused, but slowly understanding crossed her face. “We have the funds, yes,” she murmured, “And having the people as my ally would be a great boon.”

“You could persuade House Indoril to help, too. I know you resent them, but you need them on your side, and now that you’re queen they’ll be eager to take advantage of you. Make it mutually advantageous.” 

“I was planning to go to them myself. House Indoril is a faithful House and much charity is run by the temple. If I persuade Chemua they’re funding most of it he’ll be more lenient, and…” 

And so they talked, long into the day, as the last vestiges of a rainstorm dissipated and left Mournhold in the care of warm, vigorous sunlight. They were young and inseparable, emboldened by their success and assured of their abilities, and in those earliest days of their lives it seemed to them that they faced the challenge of making right all the wrongs in the world, and that it was within their power to do so. 

Far away, across the Inner Sea, the Grandmagister of House Sotha offered an infant to a weeping widower known in Bal Fell only as the netchiman. Words of solace and thanks were exchanged, but sparsely, and then Sohleh, who was eager to return home, made his immediate departure. Bal Fell was left bathed in afternoon light, but the netchiman withdrew into the darkness, returning with his crying child to his small empty shack, back to his bedroom, where he fell to his knees and wept with thanks at the shrine of Molag Bal. 

* * *

_'I am the Face-Snaked Queen of the Three in One. In you is an image and a seven-syllable spell, AYEM AE SEHTI AE VEHK, which you will repeat to it until mystery comes."_  
  


* * *

(Translations:

 _Thu’um-tharum:_ a sport played by Nord Tongues that utilizes the thu’um to pass a shuttlecock over a net  
_Fenja lost kriivah:_ Fenja was murdered.   
_Nahkriin fah rok // Nahkriin fah Fenja, mal fahliil. Nust fent sosaal_ : Vengeance for him // Vengeance for Fenja, little elf. They shall bleed.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to sharmat-dreams.tumblr.com for beta'ing this chapter!


	3. Chapter III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once more, please check the content warnings in the tags for this fic! 
> 
> Note: This fic was originally written before ESO's Clockwork City DLC was released. Thus, it uses my own headcanons for House Sotha rather than ESO's.

_1E404, Sun’s Height._

_Eight years after Almalexia’s coronation._

_Then Ayem threw the netchiman's wife into the ocean water where dreughs took her into castles of glass and coral. They gifted the netchiman's wife with gills and milk fingers, changing her sex so that she might give birth to the image as an egg. There she stayed for seven or eight months._

* * *

At that late hour Mournhold’s grand throne room was unoccupied, the expansive hall dim, cool, and utterly silent. Almalexia lounged on the throne, chin resting on one hand, watching as the Nord before her paced silently to and fro across the hall. He was the Jarl of Mournhold and a fearsome Tongue, handsome in feature and terrifying in countenance, well-built and intimidating with eyes as cold and blue as the distant glaciers she’d never seen, more clever than his brutality would suggest and more unpredictable than the ash-storms he could conjure. He was in the prime of his life, hale and hearty, the finest specimen of the Nordic race; he was hopelessly human, inferior, outmatched. In the evening’s gloom he seemed harmless as a caged beast.

“So you’ve sent away your lapdog,” Chemua said at last. 

“I didn’t send him away,” Almalexia corrected him. “Sotha Sil chose to oversee House Sotha’s divorce with Great House Telvanni in person. It was his choice, though he has my blessing.” 

“I see.” Chemua did not halt his restless pacing. “How strange it is, that he leaves at such an opportune moment.” 

“As opportune a moment as his House divorcing their liege-House?” 

“As opportune as before the harvest comes.”

Almalexia made a show of stifling a yawn, slouching slightly in her throne with her long legs stretched out before her. “The harvest? You want to discuss the harvest yet again? Surely that matter has been settled.” 

Chemua ignored her show of boredom. “My treasurer has drawn up--” 

“Your treasurer asked me if he could take me to that play.” 

“Hoaga demands half the crops of every farmer who harvests this year.” 

“That play about the mehra of Koal Canton, Chemua. Do you know it? I’ve heard it’s very funny.” Almalexia tugged at a loose lock of hair, crossed one leg over the other. “I think I’ll accept the treasuer’s offer. I wish to speak to him about the harvest, _personally_.” 

Chemua drew to a pause, casting her a withering glance, one she met with an unassuming smile. 

“... I have asked my treasurer to start auditing the farms,” Chemua said, placing visible effort into keeping his voice calm and even, “Hoaga will expect me to bring word of how much we’ll yield when I go north.”

“And who does Hoaga expect to collect this… ill-advised tribute, with you and your retinue up north with him?” 

“Mournhold palace has its own men.” 

“You want to use the Shouts for this?” Almalexia sat up straight, placing her hands in her lap and frowning. “Chemua, most of them are natives, their family and friends are the farmers Hoaga wants to starve. You can’t ask them to enforce this.” 

“They are soldiers--”

“They are citizens, good men with good hearts who love the city. You’ll never make them agree to this.”

“Make them?” 

Chemua ended his pacing, but he did not stay in place; he walked right up to the throne and, before Almalexia could react, seized her jaw in his hand and dragged her gaze up to meet his. The two stared at each other, Almalexia’s fists clenched in her lap and Chemua staring coldly down at her.

“There is a thu’um,” he murmured, “That I can use to take hearts and make living men into mindless slaves. I could _make_ your Shouts do whatever I please, I would need only say a word. I’ve offered to resolve this peacefully, and you’ve declined. So. Tell me the name of the First Commander you hold so dear.” 

“You brute--”

“Almalexia.” 

Almalexia closed her eyes. “Her name is Heigl Ash-Helm,” she hissed. “Let go of me, you smell like a stable.” 

Chemua released her, and she slumped back in her throne, rubbing her jaw, glaring after him as he made to leave. 

“You wouldn’t dare!” she called to his retreating back. “If you had such a thu’um, you’d have used it by now.”

Without turning to face her, he laughed. “We shall see.” 

*** 

The air of the Inner Sea was warm and a little muggy, and it left the sharp tang of salt perpetually in the tongue and on the nostrils. It might have been chafing to someone unfamiliar with the sea, but Sotha Sil was anything but, and from where he stood at the prowl of a small fishing ship he inhaled deeply the scent of salt and the hints of ash coming in on the cool breeze. His hair was loose, his face and chest bathed in sunlight and wet with spray washing over the sides of the ship-- he was in utter bliss. All morning he’d been fighting the boyish urge to tear away his clothes and dive into the water.

Eight years. It had been eight years since he’d been on the ocean. Never again would he let himself be away for so long. 

In Nirn everything was interconnected, like a machine with so many interlocking parts. The simple change in a gear echoed outwards and changed the entire system. The death of a distant Skyrim king-contender could see his successor’s son revoke a city from his vassal, pushing that vassal onto a previously unoccupied subcontinent, shifting the balance of power such that all forces must move. A Great House could welcome the new Jarl, and use the disruption caused by his arrival to wage war against another Great House, swiftly driving that House out of the lush eastern grazelands and claiming them for its own. And that defeated House might have called on its banner-Houses to defend it, but one banner-House, small and oft-overlooked in its swampland, yet infinite in its wisdom, might have declined and demanded divorce from its liege instead. 

So it happened that Hoag’s revocation of Blacklight and Ysmir’s subsequent relocation to Vvardenfell was the fortuitous event that returned Sotha Sil to his family’s bosom: a small nudge and the machinery of all Red Mountain had been altered. 

They were bound for the fishing village of Bal Fell, and then on to Ald Sotha. In the distance the outmost fringes of Vvardenfell were already visible-- soft green islands and the jagged teeth of southmost Azura’s coast draped in velvet vermillion moss, silhouetted against the dramatic backdrop of Red Mountain towering above them. If he closed his eyes, Sotha Sil could picture the seafloor below, the towering coral bommies rising intermittently above swaying seaweed groves, the slaughterfish preying on undersea rainbows of reef-fish, and the dreugh foragers that chased them with chitin spears while playing their dangerous cat-and-mouth with House Sotha’s wax-divers. Mournhold had its grandeur, yes, but the finest building in Morrowind was plain compared to the sheer natural beauty of southern Vvardenfell, the Inner Sea’s glittering tranquility. 

They were making good time, navigating the reefs without issue, and Sotha Sil knew that if they continued due north they would arrive at his childhood home within a few hours. He longed to do so, but Almalexia had extorted from him a promise that obliged him to delay his return. The long creak of a turning mast echoed across the deck of the small ship and called Sil’s attention to the only other occupant of the boat: a grim, mute fishermer with a shaved head and fierce grey eyes that stood out from his leathery face. The fishermer wasn’t Sotha Sil’s typical choice of travel companion, but passage to Bal Fell had been surprisingly difficult to come across, and he wasn’t picky by nature. 

“Any news of Bal Fell?” called Sotha Sil. Predictably, there was no reply-- the mer hadn’t said more than ten words throughout the trip-- so he turned back to the prow and closed his eyes, yielding to fond reminiscence once more. The sea-breeze was sweet in his nostrils, and if he paid close attention to the wind, he could imagine that he caught traces of the town’s background noise. Logic told him that such a thing would be impossible, of course, but the thought was pleasing to him and he allowed himself to become lost in those idle fantasies. 

When he opened his eyes some minutes later he found himself looking at a Daedric shrine. 

This wasn’t unusual in and of itself-- a smaller structure of its sort formed the centre of Ald Sotha-- but its presence on Bal Fell was unanticipated. More alarming still was the appearance of the shrine, for this did not look like a structure built by any civilized mer. It seemed to have sprung from the island like a weed, an overgrown mass of jagged tendrils and hulking blocky walls, all protruding cancerously from the skeleton of a village below. A hideous sight even from afar, Sotha Sil thought uneasily. 

He turned around with a question on his tongue, but the expression on the fishermer’s face quieted him. Conclusions clicked together in Sotha Sil’s mind and he turned mutely back to the prow. 

As the ship passed the island’s barrier-reef and made haste towards Bal Fell, it became clear that the shrine deserved the revulsion it had evoked. The houses that poked out from among the erratic sprawl of Daedric masonry proved to be mere ruins, half-burned or sagging with decay. Behind the sea-breeze was the faint smell of rot. 

A small jetty emerged from the shrine where it spilled out into the sea, and it was this that the boat aligned itself with once they drew near. The fishermer grabbed a rope and vaulted over the edge, pulling in his craft to moor it. Sotha Sil himself remained by the prow, staring ahead at the ruins, staring without quite seeing it. There was horror in his throat and, ever the thinker, he found himself wondering how such an evil construction could have appeared so near Ald Sotha, and for how long it had been there, and what had happened to the people of the village, and what dread events could have caused this, and how long ago, and why, and by whose fault? He turned--

And the fishermer sunk a dagger into his shoulder. 

Sotha Sil staggered back with a gasp. Instinct kicked in and he discharged a lightning bolt into the fishermer’s chest. The mer was pushed back and Sotha Sil immediately brought lightning to his hands, letting loose a second plume of lightning against his torso, piercing the assailant through. He fell, seizing, and Sotha Sil quickly conjured a third spell, a fireball that ended his life. The whole ordeal was over in an instant, and Sotha Sil found himself standing, numb with shock, over a singed corpse. 

He became aware that the hilt of a knife was protruding from his shoulder, and that he couldn’t move his right arm at all. With that awareness came the pain: it flooded him, and he stumbled back, sliding down into sitting position with his back against the side of the boat. He braced himself, drew in a deep breath, and wrenched the blade out of his flesh, unable to stifle a shout as he did so. A second’s pause, and then he pressed his functioning hand to the blood-sodden wound and closed his eyes, pouring his magika and concentration into knitting back together tendon and flesh. 

By the time his magika reserves ran out he’d healed all but the shallowest part of the wound. It still bled slowly, but the danger had passed, so he let his hand fall to his lap and his head fall back against the ship’s side as exhaustion overcame him. 

It was a long while before he mustered the energy to move again. When he’d regained a steady heartbeat and the pain became tolerable he dragged himself upright and looked around the ship. The fishermer’s corpse was still lying on the deck; Sotha Sil approached it and knelt by its side, going about the grim task of searching through its clothes. In the pocket of his threadbare trousers was his payment and the key to the lower desk of the ship, and nothing particularly suspicious. However, when Sil pulled open his buttoned shirt he found the mer’s chest was a ruin of scars in the telltale signs of ritual mutilation. 

He’d seen such scars only once before, as a child, when a servant of Molag Bal was discovered and his corpse hung out as warning. 

So this was who was to blame for Bal Fell’s destruction. Sotha Sil bit back the urge to retch. With his magika depleted, he wouldn’t dare explore the shrine-complex itself, but mounting dread compelled him to leave the boat and investigate the nearest huts. His disgust only grew as he picked his way through ransacked homes, through broken skeletons and senseless devastation, recognizing, here and there, little details that brought back memories of home, the remnants of what had once been a lively thriving village. 

In one hut he found the remains of a family, an adult’s skeleton cradling the tiny broken bones of a small child. He gave up his search and retreated to the ship. 

Neither he nor Almalexia had mentioned Vehk in the years since the child was sent off. Sotha Sohleh’s first letter had mentioned that ze’d been returned to hir father; his later letters had borne no further news, and Almalexia hadn’t asked about it, immersed as she was in her strange and complex political games. Sotha Sil wondered how she’d react to hearing of Vehk’s death, whether she’d weep with a newly-coronated queen’s passion, or whether she’d demand justice and blood in the way of the confident capricious monarch she’d grown into. He wondered whether he should tell her at all. 

The fishermer’s key opened a small hatch on the deck of the ship, and it lead into a rudimentary bedroom, complete with a hammock and a day or so’s worth of provision stashed in a chest. The sun was setting now, painting Bal Fell a bloody red anew, and with no boating experience and no remaining magika Sotha Sil had no choice but to spend the night. Back on deck he arranged a small pile of wood salvaged from the nearby huts and, with his own bloody shirt to serve as tinder, used what little magika had returned to him since the fight to ignite a fire so that he’d be able to cook a porridge of saltrice for dinner. The fishermer’s corpse watched him all the while, his glassy grey eyes growing harsher by the moment, until his leer became intolerable; while the saltrice was bubbling away Sil walked over and hauled the corpse over the side of the ship. As dusk yielded to night, Sil murmured a prayer to Azura, and the fishermer’s body floated away face-down into the inky gloom of night. 

Later on, as he tried to fall asleep to the creak of wood and the gentle rocking of the Inner Sea, Sotha Sil found himself recalling his conversation in Azura’s Sanctum eight years prior, and he wondered about the meaning of suffering: whether, as a small change in a machine can cascade into catastrophe, this catastrophe couldn’t be traced back to a seemingly meaningless event, too. 

When Sotha Sil awoke, he was no longer alone.

He first noticed the sound of rummaging. The hatch to the deck was open, and in the thin moonlight he could see a small and hunched figure, the top half of its body hidden as it rifled through the fishermer’s chest. In the pale light it looked like an oversized scamp, or some humanoid daedra, certainly not the sort of thing someone would want in their sleeping quarters. Sotha Sil sat up slowly, readied a fireball in one hand, and with the other cast a magelight.

The room was flooded with light. The creature, in response, shrieked and dove for a corner. It was a child, Sotha Sil realized immediately-- a Chimeri child, still young, clad only in a loincloth and a mop of damp black hair that partially covered hir wide frightened eyes. Ze clutched a spear, and as Sotha Sil stared ze held the weapon in front of hirself in a way that even he could tell would be compically ineffective for self-defence. Ze was far too young to be a threat to anyone, so Sotha Sil relaxed and extinguished the fireball he’d readied, instead extending a hand. 

“I won’t harm you,” he said gently. The child only stared at him, so Sotha Sil spoke again, keeping his voice soft. “Where did you come from?”

The child, pressing back into the corner, babbled an answer in a tongue that wasn’t Aldmeris but wasn’t unfamiliar to him. It took Sotha Sil a moment to realize where he’d heard the language before-- it was, of all things, Dreughic, the dialect of Aldmeris used by the underwater race of crab-people that so often came in contact with his family. Sotha Sil had learned some of the language when he was young, though he was clumsy and long out of practice, so he took a moment to formulate the next sentence in the tongue:

“I’m not going to hurt you.” 

This time the child understood, and ze replied curtly, in the same language. “I took your feet.” 

Sotha Sil blinked, confused, so the child clarified: “I cut off your feet. You can’t get me.” 

Sotha Sil glanced down at his prosthetic legs and saw that the feet had, indeed, been removed, and dumped next to the hammock. He reached down and reattached them, which seemed to alarm the little intruder, for ze cringed back against the wall and jabbed feebly in Sil’s direction with hir spear. 

“My legs are metal,” Sil explained, trying to soothe hir. Now that the initial shock was clearing, he was overwhelmed by pity for the child, who was clearly malnourished and couldn’t be much older than eight. “Do you live on the island?”

“I live in the palace of glass and coral,” the child replied. “I am the netchiman’s wife. I live with the dreugh. Who’re you?”

“My name is Sotha Sil.”

“... Seht?”

And here the child did something altogether unexpected: ze dropped hir spear and ran to his side. Hovering close to him, ze reached into a pouch fixed to hir loincloth and, timidly, offered it out to him. Sotha Sil took it and ze darted back, regarding him with caution, but there was a smile playing at the corner of hir mouth as ze explained in dreugh-babble. “I was told to wait for you, Seht! Ayem ae Sehti ae Vehk. It’s a spell. Are you Seht?” 

Numb with disbelief, Sotha Sil opened the pouch. Inside was a pulpy mush that might have once been paper; all that remained was a sorry wax lump, bearing the distorted but unmistakable shape of Mournhold’s crest. He stared at it for a long moment before lifting his gaze.

“Vehk?” 

The child was smiling, now, crouching in hir corner and bouncing up and down. “Ayem ae Sehti ae Vehk!” ze repeated cheerfully. “You’re truly Seht?” 

“I… I am, yes.” 

“The netchiman told me about you, you’re Ayem’s brother. The paper said, Ayem brought me here and cast a spell. Although,” ze scrunched up hir face, “You don’t look like a monster. I thought you’d be scarier. Are you evil?”

Weakly, Sotha Sil shook his head. “I don’t think so--”

“You didn’t wake when I took your feet. How?” 

“They’re not my real legs. They’re metal, I can’t feel them.” 

“Where’d your real legs go? Did they walk away without you? Was it because you’re evil?”

The child was beaming as ze spoke, bouncing up and down, and Sil found himself reminded of his own younger siblings, though Vehk was far more talkative. He looked back down at the wax seal in his hand. Could this truly be Vehk? It seemed impossible, and yet the proof was in his hands, and in the energetic orphan that babbled away in Dreughic even as Sil pondered:

“I’m grown up now. I wasn’t grown up when I lived on land. But even when I wasn’t grown up I don’t remember taking off my legs. Can all land people do that? Is it just you? How’d your legs run away? That wasn’t smart of you. Can I touch them? Will they zap me? The queen of the Dreugh says I must stay away from zapping things--” 

Sotha Sil interrupted hir. “Are you truly Vehk?”

The child fell silent, considering the question with an odd expression. “I am a netchiman’s wife,” ze finally answered. “But maybe there’s a Vehk. Or there was. Inside of me, with that spell. Ayem ae Sehti ae Vehk.” 

More crypticism. Sotha Sil shrugged it off, for the moment; he didn’t need more proof to confirm the certainty that already gripped his heart. Questions overwhelmed him, most too morbid to burden a small child with, so he selected the simplest one: “Why were you looking through my things?”

“For supplies,” the child answered sagely, “The dreugh like land people’s food. I take it from the shrine. Do you have some?”

“I do have some saltrice porridge. Are you hungry?” 

“What’s porridge?”

Sotha Sil had two younger siblings, and multiple first cousins and second cousins and distant relations besides that he’d been expected to care for over the years, so he was accustomed to looking after children, and this one proved no challenge. Little Vehk, for all hir strange circumstances, was not a difficult child and seemed quite content to babble at him in hir half-intelligible Dreughic while Sil reheated and served the remainder of his dinner, and after Sil had reassured hir that warm things were safe to eat, ze insisted on speaking through every mouthful. 

“What’re those things? The things in the sky?” 

“They’re called _stars_ , in Aldmeris.” 

“What are they?” 

“Nobody knows for certain. Some people think they’re holes leading to Aetherius.”

“What’s Aetherius?”

“It’s a realm beyond ours--”

“What’s a realm?”

And so it went. Aside from being extremely talkative, Vehk proved hirself to be both highly intelligent and highly curious, and though the Dreughic dialect was limited and Sil’s grasp of it rusty, Vehk didn’t seem to have any issues in understanding Aldmeris words when Sil substituted them in. Ze pestered Sil with an endless stream of questions, receiving one answer only to ask for another, and they must’ve sat on the deck for an hour or more and talked until ze was yawning. 

“Why do you have hair on your chin?”

“Because it grows there,” Sotha Sil explained patiently. By this point in the evening Vehk had curled up into a ball, hugging hir knees to hir chest and speaking between yawns. Before ze could come up with hir next question Sil asked one of his own. “Vehk, do you live near here?”

Vehk nodded. “A long swim away, with the dreugh in their coral castle.”

“Do you want to stay there?”

This made hir pause, and ze watched Sotha Sil for several long moments before slowly, uncertainly, shaking hir head. “I… I want to stay with you. May I? I waited for you…”

Sotha Sil smiled and nodded. “I was hoping you’d say that. Of course you can stay with me. But it’s late, and we should sleep. Come.” 

He lead the yawning child back down below the deck. He’d been about to offer hir the hammock, but ze’d already retreated to hir corner and curled up there, looking a little like an egg and seemingly content. Sotha Sil decided not to push hir and returned to his hammock.

But barely a moment after he’d settled in there came the sound of footsteps, and then a bony body draped itself over his chest. He looked down and found Vehk making hirself comfortable atop him, thin arms wrapped around his neck and a small face pressed into his bare shoulder. The child’s skin had an odd texture, and Sil realized it was covered in dreugh-wax, the waterproofing substance used by some members of his House when spending long periods of time beneath the sea. Perhaps ‘living with the dreugh’ hadn’t been a metaphor after all.

Vehk mumbled something against his skin and he asked hir to repeat it. 

“I said,” ze said softly, “Must I marry you?”

“Excuse me?”

“When I live with you. Do I have to be your wife?” 

Something about the way ze said it, the way ze clung to him, made Sotha Sil uneasy. He shook his head and wrapped his arms tight around the child. “No! No, of course not. You’re more like… like my brother. Or my sister?”

“Your brothersister?”

“... Sure?” 

That seemed to satisfy Vehk, for ze smiled and nuzzled hir face against his neck, immediately falling into sleep, and Sotha Sil dozed off soon after. 

***

To facilitate the rebalancing of power in northern Morrowind, and to plan how the eastern province would aid the new King Kjoric in his war against the foul pretender Olaf, a moot of chieftains had been arranged to converge on Blacklight in the last week of Sun’s Height. This was very convenient for Almalexia and her plans, for it meant Chemua would be blessedly absent during harvest season, and she was free to interfere as she pleased. Reasoning with him, she had learned during her rule, was a lost cause; it was easier to take the Chimeri strategy of seducing his agents and lying to his face. 

So, to circumvent the half-total levy Chemua intended to impose on that year’s harvest Almalexia had diplomatically decided to seduce his treasurer and lie to his face. The play about Koal Canton had been boring, but that hadn’t stopped the treasurer from guffawing at every bland joke that’d flown over his balding head. After the play they’d strolled through the public gardens, where the weaselly little man had been deftly taken in by Almalexia’s feigned fascination over his time serving a Solitude mercantile guild, and his many gripes about how displeasing Mournhold was in particular; as most men influenced by Chemua were, he seemed to believe her somewhat of a naive idiot, so her earnest offer to ‘take some of the work off of his poor sore shoulders’ by having the Shouts conduct the audits was accepted with patronizing gratitude.

Heigl had already, on Almalexia’s command, picked out the most loyal Shouts for the audit and carefully informed them about what sort of numbers they were to return. The audits would begin the morning after Chemua and his retinue departed north-- there was naught left to do but wait. After a long bath, and a cathartic session of insulting the treasurer to a trusted handmaiden, Almalexia had settled into bed feeling all-together pleased with herself.

Awaking the next morning to a Nord’s face glaring down at her hadn’t been part of her plans. 

For a moment, she simply stared. Then she realized what she was looking at, and she _screamed_ , lashing out; Chemua stepped neatly back before her fist could strike him. It was late morning, going by the light that came through the single window of her bedchambers, and the Jarl was dressed in casual summer-clothing, a sleeveless wool tunic and his hair tied back in a ponytail. 

Almalexia sat up and pulled her bedrobe tight over her chest. “What are you doing here!” she demanded. “Who let you in here?” 

Chemua glanced over his shoulder, and Almalexia followed his gaze to where a Shout hovered in the doorway, wringing his hands and watching them. 

“I was looking for my treasurer,” Chemua replied calmly. 

“Why would he be in my bed-chambers? You jealous fool, are you soul-sick?” Almalexia shifted, crossing her arms more tightly. “Why are you even here? You’re meant to be in Blacklight, are you not?” 

Chemua turned away from her and walked towards the window. “Ah, well.” 

“Well?” 

“I’ve decided not to go.” 

It took a moment for her to comprehend this. “What? Why?” 

Chemua remained turned away, staring out the window; he was tall enough and broad enough that he seemed to black out the room with his silhouette, but his voice was light and unconcerned. “Because I decided to heed your advice. You’re right, I couldn’t trust the Shouts to collect tribute. Better to keep my own retinue here and do it myself.” 

Almalexia scrambled out of bed, tying her bedrobe tight as she spoke. “You shouldn’t have bothered,” she said, laughing a little. “I’ve already arranged everything with the treasurer. _Thuri_ , you need not trouble yourself so. The Shouts are more than trustworthy, we all want to see Olaf defeated, they’ll be glad to aid the war. Surely you’ll be of more use up in Blacklight? Someone of your cunning and talent will serve more use with the other Tongues…” She approached him, smiling as she rambled, with a decided touch of nervousness. 

“Hoaga sees my point,” Chemua replied in a drawl, “Although he’s decided he wants four-fifths of the harvest, not half.”

Almalexia drew to a stop. “No.”

“Yes.”

“They’ll starve. The whole city will starve.” 

“Probably.” 

“You can’t starve the fetching capital!” Her voice raised to a hoarse shout. “Deshaan feeds Morrowind! You cannot starve a nation, not for a cause that does not affect us!”

“Can’t I?”

“No! I won’t permit it.” Almalexia grabbed his arm, so that he turned to face her, and she jabbed a finger into his chest. “I am this city’s _queen_ , I will not let them come to harm. Even if it means going to war with your retinue, I will not let them starve!” 

Chemua exhaled, and wrapped his hand around Almalexia’s. He regarded her for a long moment. “You intend to go to war with me?” 

“I will not hesitate,” she answered. “If that is what it takes to protect my people, I will not--”

She broke off, for he’d squeezed her hand so tightly that it felt as if her finger might snap, and she gritted her teeth, desperately trying not to show pain. 

After a second he released her. “Very well,” he said, with a small nod. “This is your action. All that happens henceforth is caused by you. I hope you can accept that.” 

He made for the door, leaving Almalexia, red-faced and her hands drawn tight to her chest, glaring after him. 

“We shall see,” she uttered as he left. “We shall see.” 

***

By the time the sun rose over the horizon, Vehk was up and about again, and while waiting for Sotha Sil to awaken ze’d set hirself the task of probing every corner of the ship. When Sotha Sil finally did wake, he found that his cabin had mysteriously accumulated a pile of rope, rigging, seaweed, and his own unpacked luggage. Vehk hirself sat proudly atop the little collection, examining a book. 

“What’s this?”

Sotha Sil sat up, rubbing at his eyes. “That’s a book. Don’t get it wet.”

“What does it do?”

“It carries information.” 

“Where does the information go?”

“It doesn’t quite--”

“How do I use it?”

“Not like that.”

“Should I eat it? To hear the knowledge?”

“... Let’s find something for breakfast.”

Aside from being curious to a fault, Vehk proved hirself to be useful in hir own ways. While Sotha Sil struggled to dredge up enough saltrice for a decent meal, Vehk disappeared overboard with hir spear, and returned a few minutes later with two slaughterfish neatly skewered on its tip. Sotha Sil re-ignited the fire from last night and cooked the fish while Vehk continued hir constant stream of dialogue about hir morning’s adventures. Ze was particularly pleased with hir discoveries on board the ship, including the ‘secret treasure’ (Sotha Sil’s luggage) and ‘wetting for Milk Finger’ (Milk Finger was the name of Vehk’s spear, which had been freshly polished with the dreugh wax from Sil’s alchemical kit). Sotha Sil listened without objection, nodding along. A part of him knew he’d eventually have to press for real answers, and probably unpleasant ones; for now he was more than happy to let Vehk prattle on about the novelties of life. 

Once breakfast was cooked and eaten, Sotha Sil donned a spare robe and went about gathering his scattered luggage. Ald Sotha was only a couple hours’ walk from Bal Fell if one travelled directly over the water; a water-walking spell and a feather spell would make the trip an easy one. By that point Vehk had grown bored of talking, and switched to wandering after Sotha Sil and pestering with a seemingly random series of questions. 

“Can you fly?”

“With magic, yes.”

“Oh. What’s magic?”

“It’s a universal force, contained within the soul of every mortal, and we can use it--”

“What’s a soul?”

“Think of it as a bastion of energy inside of us. It’s what allows us to live.”

“Where is it?”

“Pardon?”

“The dreugh queen used to cut up fishermen and she never found any souls. Where do you keep it? In your pants?”

Sotha Sil couldn’t think of an answer for that, but his expression must have been priceless, because Vehk burst out laughing and nearly fell overboard.

By the time everything was ready to go the sun had risen high above the horizon and the air was warm and crisp. The glittering blue sea and lush greenery of the surrounding islands overwhelmed the impression left by the grotesque shrine behind them and a strong sea breeze swept away any scent of decay. Sotha Sil put a strong feather charm on his luggage-trunk, cast a waterwalking spell on himself, and turned to Vehk, who was perched on the side of the ship and watching him with fascination. 

“I’m going to cast a spell on you,” Sotha Sil told hir. “It’s going to feel odd, as if your feet are made of air, but it’s not dangerous. Close your eyes.”

“Um--”

Sotha Sil readied the spell and reached out-- Vehk dove away. The spell diffused against the side of the ship, and Sotha Sil felt Vehk climb up his back, coming to rest with hir legs tight around his waist and hir arms around his neck. 

“Don’t touch my feet,” ze stammered against the back of Sotha Sil’s head. Sotha Sil simply nodded and started walking. 

For a while they walked in silence. The day was windy but clear, and though the waves were initially rough they smoothed out as Sotha Sil drew away from the island, becoming placid and as soft underfoot as grass. Even with the horrible scene they were leaving behind it was hard not to feel at peace out on the water. Vehk had been shaking at first, but hir fear gradually gave way to curiosity, and then to awe, and before long the child was looking around in wordless fascination. Sotha Sil wondered if ze’d had much experience with magic, or with the world at all. Something told him ze hadn’t. 

“Vehk?” Sotha Sil spoke up after a while. 

“I’m not Vehk,” Vehk corrected him. “I’m the netchiman’s wife.” 

“Ah… of course.” A moment’s pause. “How long have you been with the dreugh?”

“Since I got thrown into the ocean. That was… two? Um, three? Years ago.”

“Can you tell me what happened before that? Who threw you into the ocean?”

Vehk was silent for a long time, so long that Sotha Sil feared he’d upset hir. But ze eventually began to speak, in a soft and matter-of-fact voice: 

“I am the netchiman’s wife. I lived with the netchiman.” A shudder ran through hir. “Then, um. Then my husband’s friends came and took everyone down into the shrine. And I don’t-- I don’t remember-- I think… Ayem threw me into the ocean so I’d be safe. Ayem ae Sehti ae Vehk. And then the dreugh took me into the big glass and coral castle, and they gave me Milk Finger, and they gave me gills…” Vehk fell silent and Sotha Sil felt hir shift, and a moment later a small hand shoved an amulet in front of his face. “My gills! Also, they changed me into a boy. I think? I don’t know the difference between boys and girls. It all looks the same to me.”

Sotha Sil took the amulet and turned it about in his hands-- he recognized it, to his surprise, for it was one of the waterbreathing charms used by House Sotha on their underwater fishing trips. Vehk solemnly continued hir story: 

“So I lived with the dreugh but I didn’t forget you, Seht. Ayem ae Sehti ae Vehk. The netchiman read me the letter from Ayem and I never ever forgot it. I knew you would come and save me. I’ve been waiting and now here you are!” Vehk hummed, tapping hir feet against Sotha Sil’s thighs. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner,” Sotha SIl murmured. “By Azura, she-- Ayem wouldn’t have wanted this. I’m so sorry. Bal Fell was meant to be under Ald Sotha’s protection. My father has much to answer for.” 

Vehk was unbothered by the apology. “What’s a father?” 

They talked amiably as they walked, and Sotha Sil told Vehk of Ald Sotha and his family. Vehk didn’t have much experience around other children, it seemed, and ze listened raptly to Sotha Sil’s stories of his younger siblings, asking so many questions that it didn’t leave time for a lapse in conversation, and their journey passed quickly. It seemed no time at all before the shrine to Azura came into view, a thin jagged spire rising proudly out of the mangroves, soon followed by the silhouettes of a multitude of huts raised on stilts, and then all of the village of Ald Sotha was visible, standing proudly at the edge of a lagoon against the dramatic backdrop of Red Mountain. 

It was one of his cousins who noticed him first, a fishermer standing waist-deep in the tide as she dragged in a net. She pointed him out to her partner, and her partner called out the news to his second cousin on the shore, and that cousin notified the nearby steward, who spread the word to one of Sotha Sohleh’s own children, so that by the time Sotha Sil came within shouting distance a small crowd had already gathered to greet him. The moment he raised his hand to wave someone broke away from the crowd, followed by another, and before he knew it, he found himself trapped in the tight embrace of his two younger siblings. 

“Eight years!” Kaisa sobbed into his shoulder. Serlyn punched him in the chest and pulled away, but he was grinning, too, and Sil found himself laughing as he hugged them both, exclaiming over and over how much they’d grown, gods, his baby siblings both adults now, what had happened? And then he was being dragged into the crowd, and it seemed that his entire House had come out to meet him, with how many people were there saying his name and welcoming him home. 

Suddenly he was much lighter. In the middle of having his face kissed by some distant aunt, he turned around and saw that Vehk had retreated from the throng and was waist-deep in the ocean, holding hir spear defensively before hir. Sotha Sil respectfully shooed away his family and went over to hir, intending to coax hir back. Ze rushed to him and wrapped hir arms tight around his waist, but ze didn’t seem to notice the crowd at all; ze was fixated on the Shrine to Azura, a Daedric tower that formed the nucleus of the town, and ze clung to Sil with such terror that ze threatened to pull them both down into the waves. Serlyn came over to them, and Sil asked him to bring his luggage in before returning his attention to Vehk. 

“I won’t,” Vehk said. “I’m not going to the shrine. Not again. Please not again.” 

Sotha Sil picked the child up, and ze pressed hirself into him, wrapping hir arms and legs around him as tightly as ze could and burying hir face in his shoulder. 

Sil turned to Kaisa, who’d also approached with a distinctly confused expression. “Is grandmother still staying in her yurt?” 

Kaisa frowned. “Yes, of course she is. It’s to the east, same place it was when you left. Why?”

“Will you walk with me?” 

Their grandmother was ashlander by birth, and even centuries after leaving her tribe she insisted on living outdoors in a yurt, where she insisted that Azura’s visions were clearer to her, and she could better lead the tribe. It was her abode they went to, giving the shrine a wide berth on Sotha Sil’s request. Though House Sotha was still a House, albeit a minor one, on Vvardenfell they were small and remote enough that most felt more kinship with the ashlanders than the Great Houses, and the old mabrigash was generally regarded with great respect. Not only was she the Grandmagister’s mother, but her magical prowess was without parallel and it was widely believed that she consorted nightly with Azura. She was among the most highly regarded of Sil’s idols and to bring Vehk to her seemed the obvious choice. 

Perhaps her boasts that she spoke to the Lady of Prophecy held water, for she waited for Sotha Sil’s arrival at the doorway of her yurt as if she’d been told to expect him. She greeted him with only a cursory nod as he approached. 

“Grandmother,” Sil said, bowing as best he could with Vehk latched onto him like a beetle. “I’ve missed you dearly, and I’m sorry I was away for so long.” 

“You bring me a child,” replied the old woman. 

Sotha Sil gently pulled Vehk off of him, placing hir on the ground. Ze tried to protest but couldn’t quite manage to form the words, and resigned hirself to embracing Sotha Sil around the waist, regarding the old woman warily from behind one of hir thin arms. 

“This is Vehk,” Sil explained. “Ze’s from Bal Fell. Will you look after hir, please? I need to speak to father, immediately.”

“Your father’s in the House of Azura. Show me that spear, child.” Sil’s grandmother extended her hand. Vehk was still apprehensive, and lingered against Sil’s side, but when Sil gave hir a pat on the back ze crept forwards and uncertainly offered forth Milk Finger. Sil decided that would have to do for now, and left them. 

Kaisa trotted after him, sticking close to his side as he made his way to the shrine. “Ze, hir?” she asked. “That’s dreugh-speak, isn’t it?” 

“Yes, ze used it for hirself. Ze’s more comfortable with Dreughic and I didn’t see the point in questioning it.” 

“And you said ze comes from Bal Fell? How strange! How very strange, Sil.”

“Bal Fell is in ruins, of course ze’s strange--”

“Vehk isn’t what’s strange. What were you doing on Bal Fell in the first place?” Kaisa was panting and speaking quickly, having to jog to keep up with Sotha Sil for how quickly he walked. “Don’t you know it’s infested with daedra? What are you doing here, for that matter? Father didn’t say you were coming back! Is everything alright in Mournhold?” 

“Kaisa, you can’t expect me to answer every single question immediately! I really need to speak with father, something happened--” 

Kaisa grabbed his arm, forcing him to slow. “It’s five minutes or so to the shrine. Why were you in Bal Fell?”

“I told Almalexia that I would check on Vehk. The orphan that was born during coronation.” Sotha Sil glanced at her. “Wait, what do you mean, didn’t I know--”

“Didn’t you know?” Kaisa shrugged at him. “Father said he sent word to you. Bal Fell was destroyed.” 

“When?”

“Around a year and a half ago.” 

“And you didn’t _tell me_ , Kaisa? You didn’t think to put it in your letters?” 

“As I said, father said he told you! What was I meant to say?” She put on a mocking voice, reminding him that, eight years separation or no, this was still his little sister. “ _‘Oh, dear Sil, just writing with a friendly reminder that our vassal-village was overran by daedra, thought it’d bring a fetching smile to your face over in Mournhold, brother!’_ What, did father _not_ tell you?” 

“Do you think I’d have stayed in Mournhold if I knew about something like this?” 

Kaisa shrugged again. “He said that you were-- well, I’m not going to say what he said--”

“What did he say, Kaisa?”

“Well, he told Serlyn you were too busy enjoying the _delights_ of Mournhold to bother caring if your home was overrun”

Sotha Sil, who had nearly been running, drew to a halt, causing Kaisa to stumble next to him. 

“Did he,” said Sotha Sil.

“I didn’t believe it!” Kaisa replied. “I think he was just trying to wind up Serlyn, you know how Ser was infatuated with her-- Almalexia, I mean, and he wanted to be the one in Mournhold courting her-- but father said, why else would you stay behind in Mournhold.--”

Sotha Sil began walking again, and this time Kaisa really did have to run to keep up with him, so brisk was his pace. “Sil! I told you, I didn’t believe a word of it, I tried to defend you! Why are you so angry?” 

“I’m not angry at _you!_ ”

“Then what are you angry about?”

They arrived at the door of the shrine. “I don’t know yet,” Sil replied. “But I need to speak to father. _Alone_.” 

The ‘shrine’ was really an amalgamation of buildings that had grown over several centuries. At its core was the tower, a slender Daedric shrine, strangely elegant for its untamed jagged masonry, like a thorny briar-rose arcing gracefully towards Azura’s domain in the sky. The tower was rumoured to be a creation of Veloth’s own pilgrims; its many wooden extensions, which had sprung up around it since its settlement, had accumulated later as House Sotha began to grow and thrive. The tower currently served as the centre of administration in Ald Sotha and the living-place of the Sotha bloodline, presided over by Sil’s father, Sohleh. 

As expected, Sotha Sil found his father inside, in his study near the top. Eight years had not changed Sohleh at all; when Sil found him he stood bent over the table, his long grey-streaked hair hanging loose around his broad shoulders, his gaunt face with its clear blue eyes trained downwards over various letters and documents. He was so fascinated by this task that he had not noticed the clamour of the arrival, nor did he notice the sudden appearance of his eldest son in the doorway. It was only when Sil announced himself with a gentle cough that he looked up. 

“Sil?” Sohleh asked, with an expression of surprise, and, in Sotha Sil’s mind, dismay. But a moment later he broke into an ecstatic grin and swept forwards, trapping Sil in a crushing embrace. “Sil, my son, you’ve returned at last! What an unexpected delight!” 

“I’ve returned,” Sotha Sil agreed against his shoulder, patting him on the back. Briefly he forgot his anger entirely. To be wrapped up in the arms of his father again, standing in his old study, brought back such powerful nostalgia that he could not help but be comforted, and after the trials of the past eight years, he desperately wanted that comfort. “I missed you too, father. I missed Ald Sotha.” 

They let the embrace linger, and then Sotha Sil had the unexpected thought of Vehk’s ‘netchiman’, and he prised himself out of Sohleh’s arms, drawing back. 

Sohleh, too, drew back, his smile faltering slightly. “Why, I’m overjoyed to see you!” he began. “I really am, Sil, it’s been far too long. But you look weary, my son! It must have been a frightfully long journey, and I told you that you need not come at all. I hate to think that you made that journey for no reason whatsoever--”

“Almalexia wanted me to see Vehk,” Sotha Sil replied curtly. “I went to Bal Fell.” 

A grim silence fell on the room. Sohleh’s smile wavered, then disappeared, and he hung his head. Sil remained still and watching him as he seemed to cast about for something to say. 

“I am…” Sohleh finally began, “I am so sorry, Sil, you have my utmost condolences on your foundling. I--”

“I don’t want your condolences,” Sotha Sil cut him off. “I want an explanation. Bal Fell was under our protection. What happened?”

Sohleh’s expression twisted into a grieving frown. “The Nords happened. A raiding party, in the dead of night, our battlemages could not repel them--”

“Kaisa said it was daedra. Kaisa said daedra overran the island.”

“Kaisa was mistaken, the initial attack was--” 

“I went there, father, I know what a Daedric incursion looks like!” 

“You are surprised that a Daedric cult moved into ruins? Perhaps Mournhold has made you forget, but on Vvardenfell they have haunted such ruins since time immemorial!” 

Sotha Sil stood straighter, scowling. “Why didn’t you tell me? Kaisa said it happened more than a year ago. I should have been informed.” 

“That troublesome girl!” Sohleh pulled at his hair. “But I did, Sil! I did write, and I asked for you to have Almalexia hold the raiders accountable. Why did you never reply?” 

“But you didn’t. You didn’t tell me, your letters never said anything about it.”

“Serlyn would attest that I very much did write to you!” 

“I never received a letter. I would have come back! I should have been here.” 

“You would accuse your own family of lying, my son?” 

Sil turned away from him, pressing both hands to his face and taking a deep breath. “I know what I read,” he repeated. “I’ve kept all our correspondence, I answered every letter! You never wrote anything about this. If I’d known I’d have come back.” 

“I’m sorry, Sil, I’m so sorry. I should have known something was amiss when you didn’t mention it! Alas, I merely assumed that you had bigger worries, over in the capital.” Sil felt Sohleh’s hand on his shoulder, warm and reassuring. 

“Do you know me at all?” Sil asked, incredulous. “Do you think I’m totally heartless?”

“I think you’re extremely loyal,” replied Sohleh, “And that you would have wanted to do as I bid you and serve our House’s interests in Mournhold.” 

Sotha Sil gave a hollow laugh. “They aren’t being served if I somehow-- _somehow_ \-- missed an event as grave as this!” 

“There, son, don’t think of yourself as a failure! There may yet be other explanations. Perhaps Almalexia intercepted your mail--” seeing the harsh glance Sil gave him, Sohleh stepped back, raising both hands in surrender. “It was merely a thought! Of course, it could have also been the Nords--”

“Almalexia encouraged me to come,” Sil replied. “And the Jarl has wanted me gone since I arrived.” 

“Then there must be some explanation, some form of daedric trickery, perhaps. Sil!” Sohleh gave him a pitiful look, with a frown that made his long face sag. “I don’t want to quarrel with you, not so soon after you’ve returned home! This should be a happy occasion, a joyous reunion, not-- not these Mournholden paranoid fancies!” 

“Almalexia encouraged me to come,” Sil repeated, turning to Sohleh, “And you encouraged me to stay in Mournhold. Why?” 

Sohleh blinked. “Well, it just wasn’t the priority. I can manage these trifling affairs myself. Our business in Mournhold--”

“House Telvanni’s business?” Sil cut him off. “The business of the House we’re divorcing?” 

“Azura curse the stubbornness of youth!” Sohleh exclaimed. “I am glad to have you back, Sil, I’m glad you came, and it breaks my heart that you’re accusing me of Mephala-knows-what instead of focusing on what’s important! Yes, I encouraged you not to come, but that’s only because I thought you’d be happier staying in Mournhold! And you have nobody but yourself to blame for that. You broke your mother’s heart, being gone for so long--”

“ _I was following your orders!_ ” 

“And yet you ignored half my letters! I pleaded with you to come back last year, when Ysmir--” 

“I got no such letter! You said that Ald Sotha wasn’t affected by Ysmir at all!” 

“That’s utterly ludicrous!--” 

The door swung open, and Serlyn barged in. “Father, brother!” he interrupted them, his own voice raised. “What’s all this yelling? You’re going to upset mother.” 

Sohleh’s hands were in the air, his exasperation obvious, and Sotha Sil’s own were balled into fists. The interruption seemed to cause all tension to dissipate, however; Sohleh released a piteous sigh and let his shoulders fall, while Sil turned away from him, pressing both hands to his face. 

“Serlyn,” said Sohleh tersely, “What have I told you about eavesdropping?” 

“I was not eavesdropping, father! I came to tell you that the Dagoths have arrived.” 

Sil gave his father a sharp glance. “What Dagoths?” 

Sohleh’s face had been turning more and more red throughout their argument, and now he was blushing so furiously he could’ve been Mehrunes Dagon, but he turned up his nose. “If you had read my letters, you would know that House Dagoth is courting an alliance with House Sotha after our divorce with House Telvanni.”

“I read every single one of your letters--”

“Enough! Serlyn, will you show your brother to his room? I’m sure the exhaustion of his journey has made him forget where he ought to be.” 

“My journey made me realize a lot of things, yes,” Sotha Sil snapped in reply. “Serlyn, walk with me.” 

Serlyn cast a glance at his father, who gave him a nod, and then he wordlessly held open the door as Sil left the room. 

Serlyn and Kaisa were twins, both six years Sil’s junior, and while Sil was thin and frail due to childhood sickness, his siblings had grown into well-built, stocky youths since he’d last seen them eight years prior, plump and muscular with swarthy complexions and Sohleh’s striking high cheekbones. These cheekbones, paired with the large blue eyes shared by their family, gave most Sothas an unusually intense stare; this stare was trained on Sil as Serlyn followed him out of the shrine. Wiser than his father, he made no effort to waylay Sil, nor did he speak until Sil broke the silence:

“Did father really write to me about Bal Fell?” 

“He told you he did?”

“Yes.”

Serlyn hesitated before replying. “Well, yes, he did write. I saw the letters myself. Why?” 

Sil exhaled through his teeth, running his hands through his hair, and tilted his head back to the sky. 

“Sil?”

“This doesn’t make sense,” Sil replied. “I cannot work this out. Someone is lying, or someone is being deceived.” He laughed a little. “Or I’m going mad, imagining things, hearing things, misremembering things… but, no. I know what I read. I know what I saw.” 

Serlyn looked away from him. “I don’t know what to tell you. I know what _I_ saw. Father knows what he wrote. It’s like that philosophy, Mehrunes’ razor. What’s the simplest answer? That father and I are conspiring to lie to you, or that you’re wrong somehow?”

“Or that someone was altering my correspondence.” 

“Or… that. I didn’t want to say it, but it could be that.” 

“But what would that possibly achieve? What could anyone gain from keeping me in Mournhold?”

“Well, I don’t know who-- er, what it is you do in Mournhold, but I’m sure--” 

Sil felt his face go red. “I’m Almalexia’s _counsellor_ , Serlyn, that’s all, and you should know better than to listen to rumours.” He sighed, then, looking down from the sky, “And that’s all I am, her counsellor, and one of many. I advise her on magical matters, and her Shouts advise her about the city, and the Indorils advise her on policy, and Chemua advises her on the Nords-- in the grand scheme of things, I am not that vital! This is what confuses me. I cannot work out why someone would concoct an elaborate scheme to hide my correspondence, least of all Almalexia. It makes no sense.” 

“You know her better than I do,” Serlyn replied with a shrug. “Everyone says she’s in league with the Nords, that she sells herself to them for a crown and a comfortable life. That’s the way of the Mainlanders, selling themselves.” 

Sil cast a glance at him. “Who is ‘everyone’? Who said that?”

“Ah, people, travellers. What does it matter? I’m simply saying, who else would alter your correspondence? Maybe she’s trying to protect the Nords.”

“There is another thing that troubles me, why would Nords raid Bal Fell? They’ve never troubled Vvardenfell before.” 

Serlyn gave him a sharp look, eyebrows raised, but he said nothing, for they were coming up on his grandmother’s yurt. At least Vehk’s wellbeing did not need to be added to the list of Sotha Sil’s woes; even as they approached he could hear the child’s lively chatter. As they rounded the tent they found Vehk standing proudly before hir small audience, relaying an epic story in clumsy Aldmeris to an audience consisting of Sotha Sil’s grandmother and the completely unexpected addition of High Councilor Voryn Dagoth.

“... And the whale was so big I couldn’t even drag it back home, and the Dreugh Queen had to get twenty dreugh to drag it back! She said it was the biggest whale she’d ever seen! And she took all the chitin from it, and she took it to her armorers, and they made it into Milk Finger. See? That’s bits of whale, right there! If I killed you with Milk Finger, you’d have been killed by a whale…”

Amongst the confusion, Vehk’s lively voice was a glimmer of hope, so Sotha Sil bit back his many questions and took his seat besides Voryn Dagoth. Vehk noticed his arrival immediately, however, and broke off hir story with a broad grin, switching back to dreugh-speak to address him. “Seht! Seht, did you know I’m an egg?”

“An egg?”

“An egg,” Voryn agreed in Aldmeris. “Your Grandmother calls them that. It’s good to meet you again, Sotha Sil, as good as it’s been to meet your honourable family.” 

“Well, I’m not the egg,” Vehk corrected hirself, also in Aldmeris. “I’m just a netchiman’s wife. But deep down inside of me there’s an egg. I don’t know what that makes me. Just a netchiman’s wife, I guess, that’s all. Voryn, can you talk more about the magic?” 

With no regard to Sotha Sil, Voryn smiled warmly at Vehk and rose to his feet. “Of course, Vehk. Walk with me and I’ll tell you all about it.” 

Vehk rushed forwards and latched onto Voryn’s arm, hir face radiant with joy. Sotha Sil watched, frowning, as the unlikely pair departed, Vehk chattering away to an incredibly patient Voryn. 

“Poor child,” sighed Sotha Sil’s grandmother after they’d left. “Such hardship already experienced, and so much more hardship to come. I wonder why Azura has forsaken this one. What sins are they being punished for, and whose sins are those?”

“I wonder,” Sil replied in a murmur. A moment’s hesitation, and then he added, without thinking, “Almalexia loved that child. She’s not a cruel person. If she knew Bal Fell was ruined, she would have done something. Surely she would’ve done something.”

“That child has eaten someone’s sins,” his grandmother replied, and Sotha Sil felt that discomfort in his gut, heavier than ever, the unrestful heaviness of confusion mingling with dread. 

***

Rainbows danced across the walls of the Indoril Kinhouse. 

The Great House Indoril was the traditional keepers of Mournhold, brothers to its royal line. Their symbol was a pair of wings, ostensibly for the hawk that had guided Veloth through Dunmeth Pass in lore, but truly it represented their love for the sky, their lofty ambitions, their infamous arrogance. Their Kinhouse had been built with many windows, and in front of each one hung delicate arrays of crystals designed to scatter the light. Their abode was filled with colour.

The meeting-room that Nam had given them was resplendent with rainbows, turning the map of Mournhold on the central table more vivid than any tapestry. Almalexia could not bring herself to sit, nor could she appreciate the beauty of the room; she stood behind Nam, who sat with several of her own Shouts around the circular central table, poring over the map. The barracks or the war-chambers might have been more appropriate for this war meeting, and indeed the Indorils were deeply irate at having to accommodate Almalexia’s “Nordic menace” (as the Shouts were called), but the pressing threat to the city and a need for secrecy had prised open their doors for the time being. Thus the Indoril High Councilor gathered with Almalexia and her counselors in one of the few places they felt Chemua would not think to look for them. 

“There’s still a month until the harvest, at the least,” Nam pointed out patiently. “You can persuade him, surely--” 

“I can’t,” Almalexia replied. “He’s acting on orders from Hoaga. Four-fifths from every farm.” 

“This is famine, Almalexia, they intend to cause a famine!” 

“I know that! His name is Mer-Killer, I don’t think he cares if he causes a famine.” 

“And that is why you _must_ dissuade Chemua!”

Almalexia laughed. “Dissuade him! Yes, and then I’ll go dissuade Mehrunes Dagon from sending storms this year, and I’ll dissuade Sheogorath from turning my people mad. Believe me, if I could talk him out of this, I would not be speaking to you right now!” 

Nam ran a hand over his shaved head. Before he could add to his objections, one of the Shouts-- the Second Commander, a burly Nord named Star-Sung-- interjected: “She’s right, serjo, Chemua isn’t the sort to be talked into things. It must be war.”

“Nords aren’t exactly the cunning sort,” Nam replied, clearly vexed to have an outlander address him so bluntly in his own home.

“It must be war. We marched to war before!” Star-Sung continued, unfazed, “With the Dres and then against the Dwemer. Heigl and the Queen made us ready for war, and gods, we are ready! If it’s for Mournhold’s sake we are ready. We will not cower before Chemua, we’ll save the farmers ourselves!”

This proclamation agitated Nam. “You’re children!” he replied. “You're all children, playing at rebellion, yet you don’t even recall the invasion. You’ve never marched to war against a Tongue. Do you think Amun-Shae avoided war out of cowardice alone? The atrocities Mem-yet wrought against us--” 

“We won’t be marching to war against a Tongue,” Almalexia interrupted him. “Chemua can’t wield the thu’um against us without blighting the very crops he wants to steal. Nor can he call for aid. My First Commander has studied the thu’um extensively, and she doesn’t believe any of their chieftains could oppose a series of skirmishes. The thu’um is a weapon of mass-destruction, unsuited to guerilla warfare--” 

“Where _is_ the First Commander?” asked one of the Shouts.

“Heigl will be here,” Almalexia assured them, then returned her attention to Nam. “Our plan is to station soldiers on every farm and repel the auditors as they come. A series of small battles that could easily be passed off as bandits or individual rebellion. My hope is that if we can underreport how much saltrice is required, we may be able to get away with a lesser tribunte, but everything depends on keeping Chemua’s men out of the fields.”

“I think Heigl--” interrupted a different Shout. 

“Valyn went to get her,” said Star-Sung. “She’ll be here, just you wait.’ He turned to Nam. “You’ll hear, serjo, she’s got it all worked out.” 

Nam pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’ll send Indoril soldiers to keep them off the Indoril farms,” he said. “On one condition, Almalexia-- you take responsibility for how the Jarl responds to that, not House Indoril.”

“Of course, uncle.”

“I will not have the Nords punish House Indoril for your childish games!” 

“Do you really think this is fun for me? I’m trying to save us all!” Almalexia clenched her teeth, forcing down her anger. “I won’t let him hurt anyone. That’s why I’m harbouring my _dreams of rebellion_ , Uncle. I’ll deal with him, and you make sure our House doesn’t starve.” 

“My queen,” said a petty-commander, who had until then been silent and tense, “I must object, why do the Indorils get to hide in safety while we Shouts must face treason charges? It doesn’t seem fair.” 

“Milk-drinker!” Star-Sung declared, rounding on him. “You would let the city starve to save your own hide? Cowards such as you belong in Chemua’s retinue, be off with ye!” 

The petty-commander blushed. “I’m no coward! Merely value my own hide as much as an elf’s. Doesn’t seem right, is all, that the elf-queen orders us to rebel and lets the Indorils alone.” 

“The loyalty of Nords,” Nam said scornfully. 

“Star-Sung is right,” Almalexia said curtly. “If you’d rather serve good Nordic blood, go enlist in Chemua’s retinue, and you can be glad of your strong Skyrim leadership while you starve to death! Besides, have I not said time and time again that I will take responsibility for what happens? If anyone is punished, it will be me-- even he cannot execute you for obeying orders.”

“What would Heigl say?” asked Star-Sung, with a disapproving shake of his head. “Heigl would throw herself before a dragon for the Queen, and she’d drag you with her for your spinelessness! Besides, you’re in my company, fool! I’m the one whose head is on the block! If you must cower behind someone’s skirts, they’ll be my skirts.” 

“Where _is_ the First Commander?” said a Shout. 

“I’m not the only one!” blurted out the petty-commander. “Lots of my comrades feel the same. We don’t want to fight Chemua on account of the elves.”

Almalexia glared at him. “I wasn’t aware that race had any bearing on the need for food.”

“Even the First Commander knows, I’ve told her, we won’t do it.” 

“Enough! If the First Commander has fears of mutiny, she can speak to me herself.” Vexed, Almalexia turned away and walked to the window, where a cascade of tiny glass crystals turned the world beyond into a haze of blue and wheat. It was a clear hot day, the sun strong overhead, but stormclouds amassed on the horizon, promising a late summer tempest to water the city before the harvest. 

“You think you have a choice,” she said, leaning against the windowsill, “Serve I or Chemua, serve the Chimer or the Nords. That is not the choice you face! This is not a matter of Chemua or I, of Chimer or Nords. This is a matter of famine or feast, death or life, slavery or freedom. Do you have any idea what’s at stake?” 

“Our lives,” said the petty-commander indignantly. “ _Nord_ lives.”

“Almalexia,” said Nam, “Might I remind you that you promised Indoril lives would _not_ be at stake.” 

“Nobody’s lives will be at stake!” Almalexia spun around to face them, unable to restrain her wrath any longer. “I won’t let Chemua kill anyone. I won’t let him starve us. I won’t-- where is Heigl? She believes in me, at least, she will testify that I protect those who serve me!” 

At that point a door opened, and Almalexia turned her attention there, fully expecting to see her First Commander there, as if summoned. Instead she was met with the anxious face of Nam’s Mouth, and, behind him, Mora Valyn, whose normally-confident demeanour seemed strange and solemn. 

“My Queen,” Valyn announced himself as Almalexia approached him, “And my comrades.”

“Valyn,” replied Almalexia. “Welcome. Where is Heigl?” 

Valyn bowed, and it was then Almalexia realized that his eyes were rimmed with red. “My Queen-- Almalexia-- I am sorry. It is my duty to announce that Heigl Ash-Helm is dead.”

***

In his first night at Ald Sotha, Sotha Sil was not offered his old quarters within the shrine, for they had apparently been overtaken by his brother Serlyn during his absence. His father was conspicuously _busy_ with various Telvanni agents, far too busy to even speak with Sil, let alone arrange accommodation within the shrine, but Sil would not have agreed to sleep in his childhood home even if he’d been asked. The day had left a thoroughly unpleasant impression on him. Being within the shrine made him too aware of his own thoughts, confused as they were; he was not prone to brooding the way Almalexia was, but he found himself dwelling on the disjointed information of the day, trying to unravel the mystery that had been posed to him. Sohleh’s missing letters, a Nord raiding party, a Daedric incursion, House Dagoth, and Vehk: though he was gifted with great intelligence and had a mind for puzzles, this one proved beyond him. 

For the evening he moved into a vacant shack near his grandmother’s yurt. It was modestly furnished in the style of a Vvardenfell fishermer, consisting of only a single room, with a hammock for a bed and no glass in the windows, but its simplicity didn’t bother Sotha Sil, and he even welcomed it after the overbearing opulence he’d been burdened with in Mournhold. Serlyn and Kaisa both helped him move in, bringing him food and provisions from the shrine and then making nuisances of themselves by hanging around. Though Sotha Sil would have appreciated some time alone with his thoughts, he spent the afternoon with his siblings, regaling them with many stories about Mournhold and being regaled with anecdotes of Ald Sotha in turn. They kept their conversation light, for the most part, free of politics or distressing matters. 

When dusk came his siblings left to attend the evening worship. Sotha Sil declined to go with them, and he was finally left alone with his troubled thoughts.

For a while he simply stared out of the window. Ald Sotha was not large, containing perhaps three-hundred mer at most, many of whom were away at sea at any given moment. Most of them weren’t of his blood, but all were his family, for all were House Sotha. They were his brothers and sisters, his cousins and uncles and aunts, they were the mer who had raised him, many were mer he’d helped raise. He loved them. He loved all of them, and he hadn’t realized how much he loved them until he’d been gone for eight years. 

Almalexia had called Ald Sotha a paradise and she was right. In Ald Sotha there were no plots, no schemes, and politics were a novel trifling interest that couldn’t have any bearing on their simple lives. They were isolated and they lived off the land and this made their existence easy. After all, what did the Inner Sea care what Nord called himself king? Would the summer storms stop falling because Ysmir had become Jarl of Vvardenfell? If Sotha Sil was betrayed by someone he loved, he would still wake tomorrow and find the Ascadian Isles lush and green. He could still dive into the ocean and meet the Dreugh in their coral castles, scoop kollop from the seafloor to cook over a campfire on the beach, fall asleep while counting the stars-- the fire would not care that he was hurt, the kollop wouldn’t die because someone had broken his heart. In Ald Sotha problems were small and easily addressed. Whatever went wrong could be fixed, and if it couldn’t then it truly didn’t matter, because their lives were tied to Vvardenfell alone, and Vvardenfell was a constant ally. 

The dusk was late, the sky was a rich indigo, pleasing in its contrast against the rough-hewn wood of the shack’s windows. This was meant to be a temporary residence, but Sotha Sil already felt a great attachment to it; it felt like his own kingdom, and within these walls he was king, all under his control, all problems easily resolved. Even his chambers in Mournhold had not truly been _his_ , and truthfully he hadn’t wanted them to be. When he and Almalexia were younger they had indulged in idle fantasies of a future where they were rulers of the world. Serlyn’s teasing hadn’t been fully amiss; Sotha Sil spent enough time in Almalexia’s company that they might be considered lovers, and he had tried, genuinely tried, to settle into his role as her companion and counselor. But Mournhold was full of strangers, and the longer he spent there, the more he saw of her, the more he came to realize that Almalexia, too, was not the woman he had once called a childhood friend.

His thoughts returned uneasily to the missing letters, and his last weeks in Mournhold. He had expected Almalexia to object to his brief departure, as she had objected to many such trips in the past, but Hoag’s revocation of Blacklight and the resulting political mess had fully caught her attention, making Sotha Sil an afterthought. Even in their last night together she’d been distracted and impatient, her request that he visit Vehk the only hint of emotion to escape an otherwise preoccupied facade. Could he really blame her? She was the Queen, he must suppose this was what queens were like. He nearly felt that he should be glad for her: everything was going well for her, her success was hard-won and sweet. Even Chemua had become tame and compliant beneath her expert hand, and she no longer feared him. 

Chemua was a riddle in and of himself, one Sotha Sil previously had no desire to solve, but now he found himself wondering. Almalexia rarely spoke of the Jarl with him, and in all honesty, Sotha Sil had no idea as to what the true nature of their relationship was, save that there was little fondness in it. But the Queen and Jarl both had grown up in Mournhold, they had been raised by the same men on violence and sagas told in dragon-tongue, and for all their animosity they shared a sense of ruthlessness and a hot temper and a terrifying will to dominate. Almalexia had professed once that Mournhold was her only family, and Sotha Sil had begun to suspect that not even she knew the truth of that statement. As he was born of Vvardenfell, she was born of Nordic Mournhold; but where Vvardenfell had Azura’s gentle touch and imbued resilience on her progeny, Mournhold was Boethiah’s domain, and her children were treacherous indeed. 

Would Almalexia have covered up Bal Fell’s destruction on Chemua’s behalf? Sotha Sil kept coming back to that question, not because he didn’t know the answer but, rather, because he _did_ know _:_ Almalexia would. If she thought it would serve her goals, she would.

So went around his thoughts, in unhappy circles, as the sky beyond darkened. The night was black and spangled with countless glittering stars by the time a knock on the door roused Sotha Sil out of his ruminations. Shaking his head to bring himself back down to reality, he walked over and opened the door.

The moment it was open, a small body flung itself onto him, and Vehk buried hir face in his stomach with a muffled cry of “Seht!” Someone had put the child in a simple roughspun dress, but hir hair remained tangled with salt and hir skin waxy-- evidently civilizing hir was a work in progress. Sil stroked hir hair back, returned the hug, and then glanced up at the mer who stood behind hir. 

“I apologise for returning Vehk so late,” Voryn Dagoth said by way of introduction, with a sheepish smile on his normally dignified face. “You don’t mind them staying with you, do you? I’ve been given the guest-quarters in your shrine, and they take offence to that.” 

“I don’t mind at all,” replied Sil, dumbfounded, still stooped over and half-embracing Vehk. Then he recalled his manners and bowed. “Of course, High Councilor, I’ll look after hir-- wait, are you saying that you’ve been minding hir all day?” 

“It’s my choice, Sil, I assure you. Your family has been perfectly hospitable to me.” 

“Still, it’s highly unusual for a High Councilor to be made to look after… I don’t know what my father was thinking, has he no shame?” 

“As I have said, it was my choice, and the last thing I wished to do was embarrass you!” A hint of colour rose to Voryn’s cheek, and he waved his hands. “In all honesty I thought my time was better spent with Vehk than with the Telvanni. Truth comes from the mouth of babes.” 

Veh thusfar kept hir face buried in Sil’s stomach, but ze pulled back and yawned then. “Teeth also come from my mouth,” ze mumbled. “And your mouth is a machine, Seht.” 

Ze tugged on Sil’s shirt, the way a much younger child might ask to be picked up, and Sil compliantly lifted hir into his arms. “Well, I thank you for guarding hir,” he said to Voryn as Vehk made hirself comfortable. “Ah, shall I escort you back to your quarters?” 

“I thank you, but there’s no need.” Voryn pressed his lips together. “If I may… for how long do you plan to be in Ald Sotha?” 

“A month, at least.” 

Voryn nodded. “I’d like to speak with you about Mournhold, when you have the opportunity. As you’re aware, Ysmir’s relocation has caused… several upsets. I’m keen to hear how Almalexia has handled this transition. I’d like to know...” he trailed off, then, turning his gaze away. “But it can wait.”

Sotha Sil frowned. “What’s on your mind?”

“Vehk,” Voryn gently touched the child’s back. “I’m going to go, but I’ll return in the morning. Sil will be right here for you.” 

“Don’t go to the shrine,” mumbled Vehk, already half-asleep with hir face pressed to Sil’s shoulder. “Don’t go…” 

“Goodnight, Vehk.” Voryn stepped back and bowed. “And goodnight, Sil, may Azura keep your dreams.” 

“And yours,” Sil replied hollowly, but Voryn had already departed, disappearing into the night and leaving Sotha Sil in the doorway with Vehk dozing in his arms. 

Tomorrow he’d get a bedroll for himself, he decided, but for now he deposited Vehk in the hammock, where ze was asleep at once. Though the night was warm and the breeze that came through the windows pleasant, Sotha Sil still took the time to cover Vehk in a thin blanket, and removed the spear from its holster at hir back, placing it on the ground beside hir. 

“Ayem ae Sehti…” ze mumbled as Sotha Sil tucked hir in. “Sehti, brother Sehti.” Sotha Sil reached over and took hir hand, but ze’d already fallen asleep, a peaceful expression on hir bony face. Compared to all his fantasy-driven ruminations on the tragedy, Vehk was, in contrast, shockingly real. The events Sotha Sil contemplated as a simple puzzle had been written in hir blood.

In that moment Vehk seemed to clarify everything. Quietly so as not to wake hir, Sotha Sil went to the little table below one window, the one with his trunk open next to it that he’d been using as a desk. He found in his trunk a fresh sheet of parchment, an ink-pot, and a thin metal stylus. 

With the two moons to offer him light, he spread out the parchment and began to write:  


_“Ayem,_

_I have arrived in Ald Sotha. Vehk is with me and doing well. It looks like my visit might be extended longer than planned._

_I must ask a favour of you. First, I’d like you to ask Chemua what Nords have been raiding the Ascadian Isles within the past year. Second, I ask that you send me the correspondence I’ve kept from my father. I’ve included a scroll of recall with which you can send your reply._

_Please respond as quickly as possible._

_With love,_

_Sotha Sil.”_  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the marvelous Lena for beta reading this chapter! Go check out her fic, https://fountain-of-forgetfulness.com/. And thank you to everyone who's left comments. I'm trying to get better at replying to them :')


	4. Chapter IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please check tags for content warnings.

_1E404, Last Seed._

* * *

A week passed and no word came from Mournhold. For Sotha Sil, that week went by both slowly and very, very quickly. Slowly because in every idle moment he was tormented by unanswered questions, horrible imagined answers,  _ what-ifs  _ and  _ perhapses  _ and  _ possibilities  _ more dreadful than anything even Vaermina could have dreamed up; and quickly, because he was so busy that those idle moments in which his anxiety tormented him were few and far between. 

He was preoccupied mainly by his family. Since his return his younger sister Kaisa had been his constant companion, pestering him without mercy for all his tales and gossip. In his time away she’d apparently gained the reputation of being a bit of a rogue, with a knack for illusion spells and a natural talent for archery that awed the many mages of their family. It wasn’t merely out of fondness for the girl that Sotha Sil considered her incredibly charming; Kaisa had always been boisterous, but now she’d outgrown her girlhood insecurity to become a wholly irreverent and jovial young woman, quick to laugh, with a wicked sense of humour that shocked Sotha Sil back to reality any time he started to brood. 

Kaisa’s uncouth manners were the constant vexation of his mother, Sotha Mileith, the homely good-natured alchemist from whom Sotha Sil had inherited his thoughtful demeanor and natural talent for crafts. Mileith had also attached herself to her eldest son from the moment he arrived. While Kaisa sought to distract him, Mileith offered him a sympathetic ear and many a patient word of wisdom, welcoming him back into her arms as if he’d never been gone. Sil could not bring himself to be honest with her about his paranoia, and she was wise enough not to press him. Their time together was spent catching up on the many going-ons of Ald Sotha that would be of interest to nobody but mother and son: that the corkbulb Sotha Sil carved his name into still grew tall behind the house, that the white cliffracer was seen in the skies overhead last year, that she’d kept his first automaton, and Serlyn had gotten it working again.

Serlyn himself had changed in a way Sotha Sil hadn’t expected. In his youth, Serlyn had earned himself a reputation as the black guar of their family, a restless, irritable, arrogant young mer trapped in the shadow of his prodigy of an older brother, and bitter for it. He had taken more to the path of the warrior than the mage, and as a child he’d seemed to believe this earned him the derision of his House (which couldn’t be further from the truth!). The Serlyn that Sil met upon his arrival, however, was a pragmatic and serious young man who’d readily taken up the role Sil discarded upon leaving for Mournhold. Though Serlyn shared Kaisa’s irreverent humour, in his day-to-day dealings he showed an amount of tact Sil would have never expected from his rascal of a younger brother. 

This change in Serlyn, like so many other things in Ald Sotha, seemed to hold a slightly ominous hue in Sil’s eyes. The foreboding most likely stemmed from the fact that Serlyn had become Sohleh’s right-hand. Whereas Kaisa and his mother welcomed him joyously, Serlyn seemed to keep a deliberate distance from Sotha Sil, and they scarcely got to speak in private, their only conversations being those in the council-chambers or those had when family matters forced them into each others’ company. Kaisa had noticed her brother’s cold behaviour, too, and she confided in Sil that Serlyn had started to fancy himself as the true heir of Ald Sotha in Sil’s absence; she seemed to believe he felt threatened by Sil’s sudden return, unwilling to relinquish his newfound position of authority. (Sil’s protests that he sought to usurp no-one, of course, fell on deaf ears.) 

Of course, Serlyn’s strange behaviour paled in comparison to that of Sotha Sohleh. 

But perhaps it was impossible to appreciate the strangeness of Sohleh’ behaviour without first understanding the strangeness of the very situation Sotha Sil had walked in on in returning to Ald Sotha-- an understanding Sotha Sil was forced to piece together on the fly during his week in Ald Sotha, because it seemed that he had been kept far less well-informed than he had previously imagined. 

As far as he could gather, the political situation of Vvardenfell, circa the middle of 1E404, was thus: 

Throughout the Nordic occupation, Vvardenfell had remained basically unaffected; its climate was harsh and foreign to the invaders, its fauna were strange and hostile, its flora bitter, its soils too poor for their crops, its metals unworkable to their smiths. Worst of all, it was the stronghold of the formidable Dwemer, who, while reclusive and not invincible, were a much greater challenge than their fractured Chimeri cousins. Vrage the Gifted and his howling hoard quite happily bypassed the subcontinent as they poured into Morrowind, focusing instead on the fertile hinterlands in the west, and then on the vast subtropical plains of comfortable Deshaan. As the bloody year went on, the invasion swept through the province without ever finding the inclination to cross the Inner Sea en masse. 

Near the end of the invasion, as the conquering Tongues lost their momentum and began to settle into their stolen land, the Jarl of Blacklight finally turned his attention to Red Mountain. His subjugation of Vvardenfell was no triumphant affair: he simply approached House Dagoth and offered them vassalization, the dominion of ‘Vvarden-hold’ in exchange for tribute and allegiance to their Jarl. Having watched every other Great House brought to its knees, the Dagoths graciously accepted the offer. So, for a meagre annual tribute of enchanted weapons and kwama eggs, business on Vvardenfell continued as usual.

There was one minor problem with the offer: House Dagoth did not actually own Vvardenfell, as the Nords had assumed they did. The subcontinent was in truth a complex puzzle of Dagoth, Telvanni, Ashlander, Minor House and Dwemer territories, most with overlapping borders that often triggered hot dispute. Of course, House Dagoth did not see fit to mention this minor detail to the Nords-- in their minds, after all, they  _ were  _ the rightful rulers of Vvardenfell, and their recognition as such was a moment of clear-sightedness in an otherwise ignorant race. If the other factions had an issue with this claim, the other factions could take it up with the Nords themselves. 

A minor problem is yet minor, and for the majority of the occupation the issue of who truly owned Vvardenfell was only of note to legal pedants and a few indignant Telvanni. It had, however, recently become a much greater problem, around a year before Sil's return. 

Ostensibly, this shift was triggered by Ysmir, previous Jarl of Blacklight’s, arrival on Vvardenfell. Ysmir was of Atmora, one of those strange ageless men who seemed not to have changed a day since he first offered House Dagoth their advantageous deal. Compared to the younger and more ambitious Nords, he was inscrutable. From what Sil recalled of the gossip in Mournhold, Ysmir seemingly had no interest in ruling; like so many of the Telvanni wizards, he was simply so powerful that he had ceased to fear or want anything worldly. He spent most of his days in meditation, as all great Tongues did, he spoke only in whispers, took no visitors, courted no relationships. In Blacklight he had left the leadership to the more ambitious Nords around him. As far as anyone could surmise, he retained his title only because nobody was brave enough to try and take it from him. 

When Hoag took Blacklight for his own, Ysmir did not contest it, and moved without complaint to Vvardenfell. Specifically, Ysmir had decided to make his seat Kogoruhn, the stronghold of House Dagoth. Vvardenfell had held its breath, then, expecting House Dagoth to resist the occupation--

House Dagoth had taken everyone by surprise and instead launched a full-scale invasion of the Telvanni-held Grazelands.

Here the situation departed from the secure realm of what Sotha Sil already knew and ventured into the murky realm of what Sotha Sil could gather from hearsay, rumour, and the wildly-contradicting accounts of the Telvanni and Dagoth representatives who attended the Divorce Council. Sohleh had written to him that House Dagoth drove House Telvanni out of Vvardenfell. The rest of Ald Sotha confirmed this, but added the small yet crucial fact that House Dagoth had  _ used Ysmir to do so. _ A Chimeri Great House co-operating with a Nord Chieftain in warfare was absolutely unheard of. Of course, House Dagoth staunchly denied that they had formed an alliance with Ysmir; according to them, Ysmir had been waging some other, personal, campaign in the Grazelands, a campaign that conveniently saw House Telvanni driven out, and the Dagoths simply swooped in to reclaim territory after the fact. 

Sohleh had also written that House Sotha had chosen to divorce House Telvanni solely because House Telvanni had demanded they go to war unfairly. This was, at least, partially true, but Sotha Sohleh insisted that he had  _ all along  _ mentioned the true reasons for the Divorce in his letters, and that he was  _ mystified  _ as to why Sil claimed there was no mention whatsoever of Ysmir in any of their correspondence, since it clearly posed such an essential factor in the decision. Further complicating matters were the supposed ‘Nordic Raids’ that Sohleh blamed for the destruction of Bal Fell. According to Sohleh’s indignant protests, he had from the very start claimed that they were divorcing House Telvanni partially because House Telvanni had failed to defend Bal Fell from these raids, raids that Sohleh had, of course,  _ also  _ mentioned from the very start. 

(Sotha Sil’s questions as to why the Nords would raid a territory that was being colonized by one of their own received only a few cutting remarks as to his ignorance. Further questions about the specifics of these raids-- their banners, their chief, their ships-- were probably the reason Sohleh had been diligently avoiding him for the duration of his stay in Ald Sotha. Sil did not even dare to ask questions about the Daedric cult that had since overtaken Bal Fell, fearing that broaching such an issue might see his father formally evict him from the village.)

Such was the aforementioned strangeness of Sotha Sohleh’s behaviour: vigorous avoidance. Though it embarrassed Sil to admit it, his father possessed an obsequious streak that became his first line of defense in stressful situations such as this one. When Sohleh could not avoid Sil or flee him for whatever reason, he resorted to flattering, question-dodging, fawning, making excuses, feigning ignorance, and, when all else failed, anger and indignant accusations, accusations which he’d quickly renege on, expressing instead his profound grief over Sotha Sil ‘tearing apart the family so.’ His interactions with Sotha Sil were as perplexing as they were frustrating. He would express his profound love for Sotha Sil, suggest he was being manipulated, demand his immediate return to Mournhold, proclaim great sadness over their separation, insist on his gratitude for Sil’s aid in the matters-- sometimes all within the same breath! In short, he was impossible, and Sil was rapidly being worn down.

But Sotha Sil had never been one to cower before the impossible. Thus, during his first week in Ald Sotha, he spent every day relentlessly hounding his father for details on the mystery presented to him. 

That morning he had wasted a solid hour trying to merely find the mer; after virtually two laps around the village and a brief excursion to a nearby farm, Sotha Sil finally managed to track down his father on his way back to the Shrine. Having learned his lesson on direct confrontations by day three, he concealed himself in the shadows near the central Shrine’s entrance, and, once Sohleh had come in sight of the door, leapt out of the shadows directly into his father’s path, and ambushed him with his usual requests.

“I simply can’t speak about it now, Sil,” Sohleh predictably insisted, “Too busy, much too busy!” 

“I’m asking for three minutes!” Sil repeated himself. 

Sohleh, for his part, seemed unfazed by the ambush, let alone the great amount of effort Sil had put into tracking him down. He didn’t even break out of his brisk pace as he stepped around Sil and squeezed through the doorway. “I’m sorry, my son, I’m simply far too busy!” 

“I just want to know the witnesses.” Sil set off after Sohleh as the elder mer whisked up the stairs of the Shrine. “You said that two fishermer told you that the Nords destroyed Bal Fell. I just want to know--” 

“Certainly Bal Fell will remain destroyed after the Divorce Council concludes? I have told you to put that aside for now!” 

“It will take you three minutes, father--” 

Sohleh turned a corner, his pace increasing as he rushed past the living-quarters of the Shrine, up into the spire. “Insolent child! I’ll find their names next week.”

“You said that last week!” 

“Well, give me another week!” 

“I’m asking for a single name! It can’t take that--”

“I have told you to wait!” 

“I’ve waited a week, father! The tragedy at Bal Fell--” 

“Forget about the crisis of the past, Sil, there are current crises to worry about!”

“What crises! Father, I just--”

Sotha Sil broke off, clattering to an unexpected halt as Sohleh stopped before the door to the Council Chamber. 

The Ald Sotha Shrine was dominated by a thin Daedric spire, stretching thorned and perilous towards the sky. At its crown perched a circular room, like the blossom of a rose atop its haphazard stem. Within this crown was a council-chamber. Compared to the council-chambers of most Great Houses, it was small and modest in decor; its table was coral, its chairs bonemold, the precious artefacts that boasted of a House’s wealth were few and modest. Its most striking feature was not in its furnishing but in the room itself: instead of windows, the chamber was without a roof, opening directly into the sky. In fair weather it was left open to the warm Ascadian sun, but a late-summer storm had descended on Ald Sotha that week, so the chamber was ceilinged instead by a magical barrier that yet remained translucent, so that, according to their traditions, Azura could look down upon every proceeding. 

While Sohleh composed himself before the Council-chamber doors, Sotha Sil slumped against the wall, breathing heavily. He was not an athletic mer and they ascended the tower nearly at a run; his lungs hurt, the remnants of his legs ached where their metal replacements pressed into the muscle. He barely had a chance to stand up again before Sohleh flung open the chamber doors and strode in. He clearly intended to slam the door in Sotha Sil’s face, but Sil was a little too quick for him, and ducked in behind him. 

The council-chamber was already occupied. Serlyn had risen to his feet the moment Sohleh entered; the others remained seated. Sotha Sil recognised an emissary from House Telvanni and her Mouth on one side of the table, and on the other side, Endus and Voryn Dagoth. There were no guards in the room and no other witnesses. The Telvanni were glowering in their seats; the Dagoths looked quite calm and were sharing a bottle of brandy. 

“My Lords!” Sohleh sputtered, bowing deeply. “Forgive me my delay! I had other matters to attend to, urgent matters, family matters…”

“Very important, I’m certain,” replied Voryn Dagoth diplomatically, rising to his feet. Endus, too, rose to his feet, and the two bowed low. Sotha Sil had always found the Dagoths strange, but he couldn’t deny that their manners were impeccable. 

The Telvanni shared no such courtesy. “Sohleh,” said the emissary sternly, “Explain this insult. Why are the Dagoths here?” 

“Sotha Sil,” Voryn said, “Will you honour me by sitting beside me?” 

Sil looked around the room in turn-- he had spent enough time in Mournhold to know when he’d stumbled into a sticky political web. He was still irate with his father, however, and he was not above pettiness, so he went to Voryn’s side and took a seat beside him, casting a defiant glance at Sohleh as he did. 

Sohleh opened his mouth to say something, grasped for words, found none, and instead emitted an irritated  _ hrm,  _ going to Serlyn’s side. Everyone returned to their seats.

“Thank you,” said Voryn, nodding to Sotha Sil with a smile. 

“Sohleh,” repeated the Telvanni woman with a frown, “You have three seconds to explain--” 

“Branora, would you like some Dagoth Brandy?” Endus interrupted her. He was older than Voryn and more jovial, with well-built shoulders and a broad bearded face, and an amicable smile that suggested there was nothing more than genuine hospitality in the offer. 

“Dagoth Brandy saps the willpower and intelligence,” explained Voryn, obviously noticing the emissary’s scandalized expression. “So it makes spellcasting difficult. Among my House, it’s customary for mages to drink at a gathering, to show their peaceful intent. As you can see, Endus and I are partaking. We come with peaceful intentions.”

“Oh, now he has peaceful intentions,” Branora scoffed. “After conquering Vos, he has peaceful intentions!” 

“Sil, would you like some brandy?” 

Eyes fixed on Sohleh’s face, Sil silently accepted the little cup from Endus and downed it in one gulp. 

Endus offered cups around to the rest of the table and, with Sil’s example having been set, none could refuse the offering without surrendering their honour, so they all drank. Truthfully Sil had struggled not to gag at the potent brew-- how could House Dagoth regard this as anything other than poison?-- and he noticed the other guests appearing likewise queasy as their magika was sapped. 

“How delightful,” said Branora, with an expression suggesting she thought anything but. In contrast to the Dagoths, she had a scornful demeanour typical of all ancient wizards, and her handsome lined face was puckered into a displeased scowl. Making no secret of her displeasure, she turned her hawkish gaze on Sohleh, drawing her narrow brow together sternly. “Now. Sohleh. Explain why House Dagoth is at our Divorce Council.” 

Sohleh’s cheeks were flushed, though whether from the alcohol or the Telvanni’s displeasure it was difficult to say. “I did not invite them, Demnevanni, if that’s what you imply.”

“How strange!” said Endus with a smile, “We have a letter--”

Voryn raised a hand to quiet him. “I invited myself,” he said gently, “To testify on House Sotha’s behalf, and to defend the honour of my House from the charges that have been levied against it. Because you do not appear to be in a sociable mood, I’ll cut to the matter at hand: we did not cooperate with Ysmir in his invasion of the Grazelands.”

Branora’s eyes narrowed. “And yet House Dagoth now occupies the Grazelands.”

“Our only crime is that of opportunism.” Unfazed by her ire, Voryn’s tone was amicable, his expression solemn and polite. 

“How convenient for you.” Branora rested her elbows on the table, squinting at the Dagoths. “How convenient for House Dagoth. Why did Ysmir so conveniently invade the Grazelands for you, Dagoth, tell us that!” 

Here Voryn paused, and Sil fancied that he gave Sohleh a deliberate glance. Sohleh straightened up and averted his eyes, hands clasped and fidgeting upon the table. The little exchange, Voryn’s glance and Sohleh’s reaction, took up no more than a moment, but it stood out in Sotha Sil’s mind and caught his attention.

Voryn, after a long moment’s hesitation, replied: “As I said, Ysmir is not our ally, and his intentions--” 

“Sil!” Sohleh interrupted, turning to his son with an unexpected sense of urgency, “You’ve spent time in Mournhold! You know more about the Nords than any of us here. You could tell us why the Nords should be interested in Vvardenfell. Ysmir is a friend of Almalexia’s, is he not?” 

All eyes turned on Sil, and he shifted in his seat, uncomfortable with the sudden attention. He caught Voryn glance at Sohleh again, and looked down at his own hands, struggling to come up with an answer for the unexpected question. 

“Well, Kena Branora,” Serlyn, eager not to be overshadowed by his elder brother, interjected before Sil could find an answer, speaking with the confidence of youth. “They’re at war, so they must want for resources. Perhaps they’re after ebony for weapons?”

Branora scoffed. “Sohleh, your pup needs to work on his geography. The Grazelands have no ebony. The Nords can’t even smith ebony!”

“Sil,” Sohleh repeated himself, gesturing to him. “You can think of a reason why the Nords might want the Grazelands, can’t you? Go on, son, don’t be shy.” 

The condescension in that made Sotha Sil grimace, but he bit back a scathing remark. Though he had spent the past week agonizing over why Nords might attack Bal Fell or invade the Grazelands, he’d never been able to find a suitable motive, and he was forced to guess. 

“... The Grazelands is an agricultural region,” he suggested after some thought. “The Nords are hurting for crops. As you know, they’ve been in a civil war for more than thirty years, now. They’ve been demanding more and more of Deshaan’s crops, for instance, and Narsis is being pressured similarly.” 

Branora looked skeptical at that. “Crops? Our armistice with Jurgen should cover the Grazeland’s tribute. Why should--” 

“But my son’s theory holds water!” Sohleh interrupted. “Last year, our banner-village at Bal Fell was attacked by Nords. We assumed they were attempting to colonize, only to be driven out by Dwemer at Mzanch. The fishing in South Vvardenfell is second to none, and theirs is a maritime culture, they have the settlement at Dagon Fell, after all... they surely invaded because they were seeking food, as Sil has said!” 

Both Branora and Voryn cast a glance at Sohleh, and again, Sil imagined that he saw something strange in Voryn’s expression: a brief moment of confusion, with his eyebrows raised, and then a grim understanding manifested itself on his countenance. He tightly pressed his lips together and lowered his eyes.

This time Sil wasn’t the only one who noticed the strange exchange between his father and Voryn Dagoth. Throughout the discussion, Endus’ friendly smile grew more and more strained, and now he leaned forwards, eyes narrowed, and asked pointedly: “Who occupies Bal Fell now, Sohleh?. 

“We’re planning to retake it,” replied Sohleh with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Eventually. We currently lack the warriors, the funds, and House Telvanni’s negligence certainly hasn’t helped!” He scowled at Branora, as if making a point. 

“That’s not what I asked.” 

“Bal Fell is occupied by Daedra,” Sil answered on Sohleh’s behalf. “I found a… previous resident of the village, who testified that it used to be occupied by Molag Bal cultists. I’m not sure if they still reside on the island-- it appeared empty when I was there.”

This answer seemed to surprise Endus, who looked to Voryn. “Molag Bal cultists? Then--” 

“Later, brother,” Voryn murmured to him. He lifted his head, which had thusfar been bowed, and, with a small frown, fixed his gaze on Sotha Sil. “What else can you tell us of the Nordic war?” 

“Little more than you already know, if you’re in contact with Ysmir.” Sotha Sil admitted. “Almalexia deals with their kind. When I left, the Jarl was preparing to ride to a moot in Blacklight. They plan to invade Skyrim, and Almalexia believes it will happen early next year.” 

“Interesting, that Ysmir would launch an invasion with another in the works.” Branora’s sounded bored and skeptical, and her gaze was fixed on Sohleh. 

“An invasion requires food,” Sohleh rebutted, “Which the Grazelands holds in abundance.” 

“But not nearly as abundant as Deshaan or inner Stonefalls, Sohleh. Unless there is some reason the Nords could not rely on Mournhold’s generous supply…” 

Serlyn immediately launched in on a theory, each point of which was scornfully rebutted by the Telvanni, but Sotha Sil did not hear what either of them said. His thoughts had turned back to Deshaan, to Mournhold, to crops, and in that moment, a vital piece seemed to fall into place.

Perhaps it was the burning effects of the brandy that made him feel such dread; or perhaps it was the certainty, the chilling clarity of an unsolvable puzzle finally solved. Perhaps it was the loss of his magika that tightened his throat so, or perhaps it was betrayal. Still, even as nausea settled in alongside his conclusions, he voiced them: 

“There is a reason,” Sotha Sil said quietly, “The Nords couldn’t rely on Deshaan.” 

A hushed silence fell over the table. 

“Almalexia’s been trying to limit the tribute Chemua can exact from Mournhold,” Sotha Sil continued, voice soft. “She was always… unclear, about how she planned to do that, but if she succeeded in staying his hand, in some way, the Nords might be compelled to… to look elsewhere.” 

“If you’re suggesting…” Voryn began in a low voice. 

“You’re blaming Mournhold for the attacks on Vvardenfell?” Branora’s eyebrows rose. 

“I’m not saying that.” Sotha Sil replied quickly. “I’m only saying that there’s a possible reason that the Nords can’t rely on Deshaan. Any Tongue could have ordered Ysmir to take the Grazelands, Almalexia may not even know about it.” 

“If this was true,” said Branora cautiously, “The Nords would be stripping crops from the Grazelands. It’s almost harvest.” She looked to Voryn. “Well? Have the Nords been taking crops from the Grazelands?” 

Voryn exhaled, closed his eyes, and pressed a fingertip to his forehead. “They have.” 

Another chorus of murmurs arose around the room.

“Brother,” Endus hissed, “I don’t--” 

“Almalexia wouldn’t betray us like this,” Serlyn turned to Sohleh, agitated. “Would she? Would she sell Vvardenfell to them? Mainlander cowards!” 

“How much?” Branora asked Voryn, but even she was beginning to look doubtful. 

“Four-fifths of the Grazeland yield,” Voryn replied wearily, still with his eyes closed. “I told you, House Dagoth came in after the Nords, and they’d already laid claim to the resources there. We didn’t dispute it.” 

“Sil, this is…” Sohleh, looking utterly lost, clasped his hands together. 

Sil hung his head, unable to meet his father’s gaze.

“Well!” Sohleh cried out abruptly, turning to Branora, “There you have it. A good reason for Ysmir to invade the Grazelands, no Dagoth collusion required.”

“Serjo Sotha,” Branora replied with a sneer, “If your aim is to prove that you didn’t betray us at House Dagoth’s behest, you’d do better not to be so eager to defend them.” Still, she wore a thoughtful frown, now staring up at the sky through the magical barrier above them. 

“Yes, yes,” Endus said, with his cheerful smile now looking a little strained, “And such pilfering must contribute to the present  _ strife  _ in the region. How sensible of you, brother. Alas. More brandy?”

“I think I’ve had enough.” Voryn raised a single hand, opened his eyes again, and looked to Branora with a frown. “Have we defended our honour to your satisfaction, Kena Demnevanni?”

“Mere theories won’t satisfy the council. We’re still awaiting testimony from Jurgen. That said.” Branora rested her elbow on the table, ignoring the jug of Dagoth Brandy that Endus politely extended towards her. “Yes, I suppose your theory is a compelling one. But it is only  _ one _ theory. We demand more.”

“You know there is another reason,“ Voryn said softly. 

There was something odd in the way he said it; Sotha Sil, who had been too distracted by his own misery to pay much attention to the debate, immediately returned his attention to the Dagoths, both of whom seemed deeply troubled despite their apparent exoneration. Branora, too, was given pause by this, but she raised no objection; she nodded and pressed her lips into a thin line. 

Sohleh had leaned over to Serlyn, and was whispering frantically in his ear, and this finally drew the sharp attention of Branora Demnevanni. “And you, Sotha!” she snapped at Sohleh. “Do not think this is to your benefit. If anything, House Sotha will owe us  _ more  _ for this indiscretion, considering what you guaranteed us about Almalexia…” 

The group launched into an animated discussion on said reparations, a discussion that Sotha Sil failed to pay attention to. He stared at his hands, working over the events in the back of his mind. 

He wanted to open his mouth, and object to Serlyn’s earlier statement; he wanted to protest that Almalexia wouldn’t sell Vvardenfell, that she couldn’t be aware of Ysmir’s actions. He wanted to argue that if she had been aware of this compromise, she surely would have said no. But it wasn’t so simple as that, and he knew as well as anyone that  _ yes  _ and  _ no  _ did not mean what they seemed in Mournhold. 

Almalexia would have said  _ no  _ to an invasion of Bal Fell and the Grazelands. She was not so cruel. But if Chemua had offered her the destruction of ‘there’ or ‘here’, and if the Indorils had been pressing on her back, and if it came down to her citizens starving or a Minor House far away on Vvardenfell being sacrificed, Sotha Sil could not argue that she wouldn’t bite her tongue. 

The council ended none too soon for Sotha Sil. He wanted to flee to his mother and sister, or go find Vehk for a distraction; he was the first on his feet. However, before he could leave, Voryn caught his arm. “Sil,” he murmured. “A word?” 

Sotha Sil glanced to his father, who had taken notice of them and was advancing towards them. Voryn, too, noticed this, and he quickly pulled his hand away.

“You know, Ysmir is nothing like the men of Mournhold.” He said it calmly, leaning in so that only Sil would hear. “He’s devoutly religious and cares nothing for the Nords. If he plans to invade Skyrim, as you say, he must think it’s in service to his gods. For no other reason would he invade. Do you understand?”

Sotha Sil, though completely perplexed, nodded. Voryn departed from the chamber just as Sohleh came up to them, and Sotha Sil was left in the company of his father, more confused than ever. 

***

One week and two days of silence from Mournhold, and Sotha Sil’s slumber was interrupted by a cry:

“ _ NO!”  _

He awoke to an attack, once again: small fists slamming against his chest. Vehk was atop him, sobbing and shouting incoherently in Dreughic, grabbing at him as if they were sinking. Before he’d even fully woken up, let alone realized what was happening, he caught hir in a tight embrace, which only made hir sob harder and claw at his chest.  _ This  _ succeeded in making him yelp, and he released hir. Vehk sprung off him-- only to throw hirself right back on top of him, pressing hir face to his neck. 

“I won’t,” ze wept, “I won’t, I won’t, I won’t. I won’t go to the shrine!” 

“Vehk, it’s me!” Sotha Sil embraced the child tightly again. “Shh. Shh. It’s me, it’s Seht. You’re in my house, in Ald Sotha. You’re okay. You’re safe.” 

“I won’t go. I won’t go. I don’t want to go. I don’t…” 

And Vehk dissolved into tears, sobbing and shaking against Sotha Sil’s chest. 

This had been a nightly occurrence. Vehk seemingly couldn’t sleep more than a few hours without being plagued by nightmares, and Sotha Sil, thus, couldn’t sleep more than a few hours before being awoken by the frantic child pleading with him to save hir from some unseen and unfathomable horror. Ze was in particular fixated on the Shrine; the structure that marked the centre of Ald Sotha wasn’t even visible from the single window of Sil’s shack, but that offered Vehk no comfort. In hir mind, it seemed that ‘the shrine’ was an accursed, omnipresent spectre, forever looming at the edge of consciousness, threatening with unfathomable horrors. 

“I’m sorry,” Vehk whispered, sniffling. “I’m sorry.”

Sotha Sil sighed and embraced hir.

In truth, he was aware that what tormented Vehk was no real threat. Ze wasn’t frightened of Ald Sotha’s shrine-- ze was frightened of hir own memories, of a different shrine, and of whatever had occurred there. Sil found it impossible to comfort hir for that reason; he could neither change the past nor erase hir memories of it. In the face of the tragedy of Bal Fell he was utterly powerless, forced to accept its horrible reality no matter how he cast blame and at whom, for it was last year’s event-- but in Vehk’s mind the tragedy occurred each night, in full and wretched detail, and Sil felt, somewhat selfishly, as if he was being reminded of his failure to prevent it each time sleep forced hir to live it again. 

“You’ve done nothing wrong,” Sotha Sil murmured, stroking back Vehk’s hair. “It’s alright. You’re safe, I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“I’m sorry. That wasn’t me. Not me, the egg... Vehk… I…” Vehk had gone limp, head lulling against Sotha Sil’s chest, all the fight having left hir. “Are we going to the shrine?” 

“We’re not going to the shrine, Vehk.” 

“I’m not Vehk. I’m a netchiman’s wife.” 

“Well, we’re not going to the shrine, it’s…” Sotha Sil peered through the darkness at the window, which he’d covered with a rug in a bid to ease Vehk’s nighttime fears, “It’s hardly past midnight, I think. We should be asleep.”

“I’m scared,” Vehk whispered. “I don’t want to go to the shrine.”

“... Would you like me to read to you instead?” 

Vehk nodded solemnly. Sotha Sil cast a magelight and sat up in his hammock, trying to shake sleep and worry from his mind as Vehk darted to hir ‘stash’ in the corner, where ze kept, among other things, the books that Sotha Sil had given hir. Ze was completely illiterate, but reading seemed to fascinate hir, so when ze ran back to the hammock and made hirself comfortable in Sotha Sil’s arms, Sil propped the book up on his stomach, so that ze could watch him trace his fingers down the lines while he read. 

Long after Vehk fell asleep, Sotha Sil lay awake, staring into darkness. Although his ward was sleeping peacefully, tucked up against his chest and embracing his arm, he couldn’t shake the sound of hir cries or hir pleading from his mind. Even while Vehk drooled on his bicep, Sil felt afraid for hir. It was nearly as if he believed hir night-terrors, and that he, too, believed that ze was in imminent danger, that the tragedy of Bal Fell might play out all over again. This fantasy brought back his deep anguish over his inability to prevent the tragedy-- he dwelled on it, mind moving in illogical circles, thinking up a million potential solutions to a situation for which any opportunity to solve things was long-gone. 

Unable to devise a way to rewrite the past, his mind eventually moved to the easy proxy of how he could help Vehk in the future. His father had been avoiding him, so they hadn’t had a chance to discuss Vehk’s prospects in formal terms, but Sil already suspected that the topic would cause yet another argument. When he’d set out from Mournhold, he’d told Almalexia he’d return in no more than a month; a week had already passed, and Sohleh had been pointedly offering to help him arrange his return plans, offers Sil had repeatedly waved off. With the arrival of House Dagoth and the Nord question looming over everyone’s heads, Sil intended to extend his stay for at least a week, if not longer, in spite of his father’s attempts to exclude him from the proceedings. But what would happen to Vehk when he finally did leave? He most wanted to leave hir in Ald Sotha-- though the thought of parting with hir was agonising, Mournhold’s court was a terrible place for any child, and Sil was certain that Almalexia would never forgive him if he subjected ‘her child’ to the treacherous city. Ald Sotha, by contrast, was quiet, safe, close, filled with trusted family, free of Nords. Idyllic. Despite Sohleh’s objections, Vehk would be safe here. Ze could heal. 

As Sotha Sil lay in the dark, mulling over everything, something strange occurred to him:  _ Sohleh’s objections.  _ He had thought his father merely irritated with Sil’s ‘interfering presence’, but as he picked over the past week, he realized that it seemed Sohleh had just as strong an objection to Vehk. He constantly suggested sending hir away, grasping seemingly at any excuse, and when Sil mentioned the child, Sohleh would become anxious and irritated, cutting short any conversation about hir. Vehk, too, seemed to despise Sohleh. Hir torments centred around ‘the shrine’, but Sohleh was constantly within the shrine-- could there be a connection? 

Of course, it could be that Vehk simply troubled Sohleh’s guilty conscience. And Vehk’s animosity towards Sohleh could be explained by a more general mistrust of fathers. Nonetheless, the connection had lodged itself in Sil’s mind, nagging at him. 

Once again he found himself staring at a puzzle he could not begin to comprehend. 

So, as Sil lay in the dark, feeling Vehk breathe against his arm, he made a most unusual decision: he resolved to ask Azura.

Or, rather, he’d ask his grandmother to consult her on his behalf. Sotha Sil was not devout, and in the eyes of a Daedric Prince that demanded absolute adoration above all else, this was a potentially deadly failure. Azura was the patron of House Sotha; their clan mythology held that the first Sothas had been the custodians of sacred Holamayan before migrating to the ancient Velothi tower of Bal Fell. Everything, from the preternatural wisdom of the Sotha Chimer to the unnaturally abundant fishing of the Ascadian lagoon, was attributed to Azura’s divine favour; for House Sotha, not a single drop of rain fell, not a flower bloomed, or a guar calved, that wasn’t proof of Azura’s love for them. 

This wasn’t mere religious delusion, either-- there was a good reason other mer considered Ald Sotha a paradise. Misfortune was rare-- oh, of course they had their summer typhoons, their sicknesses, their fishing accidents and untimely deaths, but these tragedies always managed to seem insignificant in the face of the remarkable family bonds that tied the House together. If anything, misfortune only seemed to reinforce their devotion to the Daedric Prince of Prophecy. If they bound themselves together around her, what tragedy couldn’t they endure? 

So, in that sense, consulting Azura was a distinctly Sotha response to the tragedy of Bal Fell. Sil was perhaps guilty of not being a mer of devout faith (he could still recall his uneasy doubts from Mournhold’s beggars-sanctum, all those years ago), but neither Azura’s fickleness nor his father’s cagey behaviour could erode his faith in his House and his love for the mer that made it. The idea of returning to the reassuring fold of his clan was a tempting one in the face of his recent troubles, especially after all that had come to light. 

So, after a few uneasy hours of sleep, Sil was awoken, as usual, by Vehk tumbling off of him and running about the room. As if last night’s nightmare had never troubled hir, ze was energetic and happy, rambling about nothing and everything as ze perched on Sil’s desk and worked dreugh-wax over Milk Finger, the simple Dreugh spear ze carried constantly. As Sotha Sil dressed and groomed himself for the day, ze regaled him with hir ideas for machines-- ze was captivated by Sil’s engineering projects, and constantly badgered him with hir own ideas. This time ze had thought up a thousand little animunculi that would be silver and swim through the oceans ‘like strings of fishes’, an idea ze described with great gusto as ze dragged Sil down to the beach. 

That morning the sky was pale, a patchwork of fast low-moving clouds and spotty light showers of warm rain. Vehk hadn’t yet learned that the food ze was provided was a constant thing, so ze made a habit of going to fish each morning, and though ze was more than capable of fending for hirself, Sotha Sil always felt compelled to follow hir, and would sit on the beach while ze darted off into the water. Ald Sotha’s lagoon was always placid, but this morning it was still as glass, its surface pearly and white from the first rays of dawn. Moisture hung thick in the air, casting everything with a milky glowing sheen, making the mangroves that hugged the shore look soft and indistinct as velvet, and turning the coral bommies revealed by the low tide into golden torches on the fringes of the water. The only movement on this tranquil morning was the occasional emergence of a head of dark hair and the glint of a spear as Vehk wove through the world beneath the waves. 

Gradually the sun rose, and burned off the ethereal mist of the lagoon; Vehk returned to Sotha Sil’s side with an armful of kollops. “I’m going to look for pearls,” ze explained cheerfully, hugging the many shells to hir chest in a basket made of hir repurposed skirt. “Not to eat! The netchiman’s wife can’t eat pearls, but they’re pretty, so I like them. ” 

“Maybe we can make a necklace of them,” Sotha Sil suggested with a gentle smile. “My grandmother can show us how.” 

“I’ll give the pearls to your grandmother. Can Sothas eat pearls? The Dreugh can eat pearls. I hope your grandmother likes the pearls. I like her. You’re right, she  _ is  _ a grand mother.” 

“That’s not what a…” Sotha Sil trailed off. Vehk’s large eyes were crinkled from smiling and honey-coloured in the morning light. Ze stood on hir tip-toes, bouncing in place. Cast in the last vestiges of foggy dawn glow, ze seemed clean and flawless as the new day itself, as if no harm could ever come to hir. 

“... Yes, she is grand.” Sotha Sil agreed. “Let’s go see her.” 

They took a back-road to his grandmother’s yurt, one that took them through the fringes of the surrounding forest and through gullies that hugged the very edge of the village, sheltering them from sight and, in turn, concealing the shrine from their direct line of sight. The village had woken hours ago with the fishermers’ pre-dawn departure, so as they passed around the settlement’s border they were greeted by Sil’s cousins and more distant House-mer, who stood on their decks filleting fish, hanging out clothing, going about the business of the day. Vehk was unusually quiet as ze walked beside Sil, no doubt anxious about receiving the attention of so many strangers; ze clung to Sil tightly with one hand, supporting the kollops bundled up against hir chest. 

As Sil had assumed she would, his grandmother seemed to be expecting them. She sat on a rug before the entrance of her yurt, arranging garlands of roses around the many whale-bone fetishes that surrounded the doorway, gifts from the villagers who so often sought her counsel. This gave Sotha Sil pause-- though they were dedicated to Azura, roses didn’t grow well in the tropical climate of Ald Sotha, so these must have been brought from somewhere else-- but at his confusion his grandmother merely smiled and beckoned them over. 

“You’ve come to ask about Vehk’s fate,” she observed, correctly. 

“Good morning, grandmother.” Sil bowed deeply to her, before leading Vehk onto the rug. Vehk tried to copy Sotha Sil’s bow, but when ze did the kollops tumbled from hir arms, and ze squeaked in alarm, scrambling to collect the cascade of shells that poured onto Grandmother Sotha’s feet.

“Ze wanted to bring you some pearls,” Sotha Sil explained, stooping over to help Vehk collect hir offering.

The spectacle had caused the old woman to laugh. “Let me see those,” Grandmother Sotha said, taking one of the shells from Vehk’s arms. “Sit,” she told Vehk, before glancing at Sotha Sil. “Both of you sit. Do you know what these are?”

“Mothers for pearls,” Vehk said cheerfully, sitting on the mat beside the old woman and resting hir face on her arm. 

“Prophecies,” the old woman corrected hir. “Would you like me to read your future, Vehk?” 

Vehk, eyes wide with wonder, nodded and pressed close to her arm. Even Sotha Sil, the skeptic, couldn’t help but be curious, and he sat beside them on the mat, where he could see his grandmother place the kollops-- three in all-- in a neat line before her. 

“Now,” began the old woman. “Let us see--”

“Don’t read my future,” Vehk interrupted her. “Read the egg!” 

“Only the egg,” Grandma Sotha said warmly. “What, little netchiman’s wife, would you like to know about the egg’s future?” 

This question stumped Vehk, who had settled down against her arm as if settling in for a bedtime story. Ze looked, bewildered, at Sotha Sil; Sil, who could think of a million questions for the moment, bit his tongue and gave Vehk a reassuring nod. 

“When will it hatch?” Vehk asked. “The egg.” 

Grandma Sotha took the first kollop and, with a single deft flick of her wrists, twisted it open. The unpleasant sucking sound made Sotha Sil wince, but neither the old woman nor the child seemed to mind it. Grandma Sotha leaned forwards to study the innards and Vehk leaned in beside her. 

After a moment of contemplation, Grandma Sotha nodded. “It will hatch after you wait a while.” 

Sotha Sil had to bite back a laugh at the obvious answer, but there was no trace of dismay in Vehk’s expression at her response; ze grabbed her arm, tugging hard on her robe. 

“What am I waiting for?” asked Vehk. 

Grandmother Sotha glanced at Sotha Sil. 

This moment of hesitation seemed to induce a flicker of self-doubt in Vehk-- ze clutched tighter to her robe. “I mean,  _ who  _ am I waiting for?” ze corrected hirself. “Sorry.”

Grandma Sotha lifted the second kollop, twisted it open, and lay both sides flat before them. This time Sotha Sil could come close enough to see both halves of the slimy animal within: pale white flesh, still twitching pitifully as saltwater trickled from its gaping lips. 

“Of course,” Grandma Sotha sighed. “You’ll wait until the hortator comes.” 

“What’s a hortator?” asked Vehk.

“A war-leader,” said Sotha Sil, frowning. “Grandmother, is there going to be war?” 

“Sotha Sil, you didn’t ask me to read your fortunes as well.” His grandmother gave him a wry smile, then turned her gaze back to Vehk. “What’s your third question?”

Vehk rested hir chin on hir knee and considered hir options. Then, once more stumped for ideas, ze looked up at Sotha Sil helplessly. “I don’t want to waste it.” 

“Where will ze wait?” Sil asked. 

Grandma Sotha twisted open the third kollop, placing the prised-open shell beside its companions. She consulted it for a while, this time, whispering inaudibly to herself. A breeze cast the smell of roses over the mat. Vehk remained still as a statue, utterly captivated. 

“Azura’s Coast,” she announced. “You’ll wait on Azura’s Coast.”

Wordlessly, Sotha Sil moved to Vehk’s other side, and pulled hir away from Grandmother Sotha’s arm, into a tight hug. Vehk settled back against his chest without hesitation, both eyes still fixed wondrously on the kollop. “Wow,” ze murmured, “So kollops know the Daedra too? I thought it was just dreugh.” 

“The world is full of wonders,” Sotha Sil agreed, turning his face away. 

“Vehk,” he heard Grandmother Sotha say. Then, “Netchiman’s wife, bring me a pot of springwater with which to wash these. Let’s eat.” 

“Can you eat the pearls?” Vehk asked as ze disentangled hirself from Sil’s arms. 

“Only if you bring me water.” 

With an enthusiastic laugh, Vehk turned heel and bolted off towards the sea. Sil tried to stand, to go after hir, but his grandmother moved too quickly for him; she took him in a hug, and he relented to the gesture, embracing her in turn. 

“You’re good with children,” he said, trying to sound light-hearted. “What a clever way to handle the situation-- sending hir away to wait on a promise that won’t come true.”

“Don’t you believe my prophecies?” asked Grandmother Sotha softly. 

They held the embrace for a few more moments, until the few tears that had come to Sotha Sil’s eyes unbidden were shed and wiped away; then he pulled back, brushing his loose hair away from his face.

“Do you think there will be a war?” he asked with a heavy sigh. 

Grandmother Sotha leaned over the shells. “Sooner or later, there is always a war. It is not a matter of  _ will be _ , only  _ when _ .” 

“And will a hortator really come? Or were you… were you trying to give Vehk some false hope?” 

She didn’t answer.

“Is Almalexia the hortator?” he uttered. 

Grandmother Sotha looked up at him, frowning. “Sil, would you like me to read your fortune?” 

Her silver hair, her heavy forehead and the deep lines of her wizened face, gave her an air of smug knowledge, but Sotha Sil found himself nodding eagerly, as if he were no older than Vehk. With the same solemnity, she took a single kollop shell and placed it on the mat before them. 

“Ask your question, then,” she bid him. “Azura waits.” 

Sotha Sil looked up at the sky, biting his lip. He had spent the past weeks in a haze of misinformation and confusion, with no clear answers to be found, and the host of questions he’d accumulated was nearly beyond measure. What could Azura possibly tell him from a kollop shell? Should he ask this shell whether it witnessed who attacked Bal Fell, or who had tampered with Sohleh’s letters? Should he ask whether there was something nefarious to Serlyn’s adolescent sullenness? Would Azura tell him whether House Dagoth had really sided with Ysmir Wulfharth, or the true reason as to why House Sotha was divorcing House Telvanni? Or should he ask about events back in Mournhold, of which he had not received news since he’d left-- whether Almalexia had succeeded in her plans to foil Chemua, whether she was ignoring his imploring letters or simply had somehow not received them. If he asked, would Azura tell him how to fix events here, or how to fix events over there? Could Azura tell him who loved him more, or who he loved more? Would a kollop tell him how to set the world right? 

“Where do I belong?” Sotha Sil asked the sky above them.

He listened for the sound of a kollop being pulled apart, but none came; he only heard his Grandmother sigh softly. 

“Oh, my child,” she said. “You don’t need me to tell you that you belong here.” 

***

The House Sotha Divorce Council wore on. 

After two weeks, word finally arrived from Almalexia. The dropbox to which Sotha Sil had attuned his scroll of recall remained conspicuously unused, but one morning an unfamiliar fishing-boat pulled into the lagoon, and the Nord courier aboard delivered to Sotha Sil an unsigned envelope allegedly from Mournhold, far too small to contain much more than a single sheet of paper. He tore it open at once, and found but a meagre scrap of parchment, bearing no seal or signature, but marked in Almalexia’s familiar neat scrawl: 

_ Seht, I suggest you delay your returning to Mournhold. Do not contact me, I will write. Your Ayem.  _

Incidentally, the Nord courier hadn’t heard of any Jarls raiding the Ascadian Isles. He suggested to Sotha Sil that Bal Fell had been struck by a famous pirate named Olmgerd the Outlaw, but it was his humble opinion that nobody would be wasting time on raiding insignificant little Bal Fell, especially now that the Succession War had picked up once more. Vvardenfell was of little interest to the Nords, he said, and he himself was only there to ferry letters from Chemua to Ysmir. The letters needed carrying because Chemua was in Mournhold, not in Blacklight as Almalexia had repeatedly claimed he’d be. Sotha Sil dismissed the courier and, once he was alone again, scrunched up the letter and shoved it into his trouser pocket, feeling distinctly like he’d been betrayed.

In the lofty rose-shaped tower that formed the Ald Sotha council-chambers, two Great Houses bickered ceaselessly with each other. House Telvanni demanded reparations from House Sotha in the face of their failure to fight House Dagoth. House Sotha maintained the House Dagoth claim that the Nords had driven House Telvanni out of the Grazelands, and the Banner-House agreement didn’t require minor Houses to join wars against a foreign enemy. Tradition was brought up and argued in extensive detail. A Telvanni expedition force was arranged and set out to fetch some arcane legal documents from a family tomb. A House Dagoth expedition was sent to locate obscure Velothi texts expounding the religious merits of a patronship arrangement. Sotha Sohleh still clammed up when Sotha Sil was around, and meetings that Sil attended seemed to devolve into a tedious farce of frivolous arguments and deliberate time-wasting at his behest. 

In the face of his father’s obstinacy, Sotha Sil gave up. After his second week in Ald Sotha, he stopped attending the meetings all-together. 

Vehk remained the strange sliver of clarity in an otherwise murky world. For that reason alone, it was a blessing in its own right that the Great Houses insisted on dragging this farce onwards; every hour wasted was another hour Sotha Sil got to spend with Vehk, and Sil had come to love the child like a brother. He’d begun to teach hir how to read, though progress was slow-- thanks, mainly, to the fact that both of them preferred to walk along the beach and swim in the lagoon rather than study. Though Vehk struggled with nightmares and often behaved strangely, ze was marvelously intelligent, precocious, adventurous and vibrant, and Sil had developed a fierce pride for hir. He couldn’t help but indulge hir whims, and even when duty called him away (as it so often did), he never left hir without ensuring that ze was safely in the custody of one of hir preferred guardians-- his grandmother, or, more commonly, Voryn Dagoth.

Oddly enough, Voryn Dagoth had grown as fond of the child as Sil was, for the two were often seen in each other's company, holding enigmatic conversations. It was on House Dagoth’s account that Sil had resigned himself to the idea of Vehk being raised on Azura’s Coast. In their brief conversations, Voryn had promised Sotha Sil a place within House Dagoth for the foundling, and Sil, heartbroken as he was to think of parting with hir, was convinced that the future he’d arranged for Vehk was as good as anyone could hope for. According to rumours, Voryn Dagoth was a man that was, as the Chimer diplomatically put it, ‘disinclined to female companionship’, so the chances of him ever having children of his own were slim. As the unlikely friendship developed, Sotha Sil began to entertain the notion that Voryn Dagoth might even take Vehk as his ward and heir. It was as lofty a station as Sotha Sil could want for Vehk, and he consoled his anxieties with the thought that Vehk’s future would be bright.

After nearly three weeks, the Council wore to a close. 

After much correspondence and much more bickering, emissary Branora had concluded that House Telvanni’s business was done. After the final discussion with the Dagoths, she departed with her flock of retainers, her only word upon departure being a curt concession to Sotha Sohleh that House Sotha would need to pay no reparations so long as House Telvanni retained use of their port. With the Telvanni matter settled, House Sotha announced its formal decision to decline any arrangements with House Dagoth. House Dagoth accepted this rejection gracefully, and they prepared to depart as well, hoping to leave for distant Kogoruhn within days. 

With a heart as heavy as ebony, Sotha Sil began to pack a trunk for Vehk and tried to plan what he’d say to Almalexia when he returned to Mournhold. 

***

The day after the official conclusion of the Divorce Council was sunny and clear, so Sotha Sil decided to forego his duties, for once, and spent the morning at the beach. Kaisa accompanied him, bringing her bow and a quiver of homemade arrows, and while Sotha Sil settled down on the sand with one of the illicit Dwemeris books he’d smuggled in from Mournhold, Kaisa stood close to him and shot at a nearby corkbulb. Though both of them had insisted the morning would be a productive one in their respective hobbies, it didn’t take long for them to devolve into gossiping, thoroughly working over the many events of the past few weeks.

As morning wore into noon, their topic of conversation came to centre on the final piece of the month’s baffling puzzle: Almalexia. Though everything else seemed to be gradually settling into place, Sotha Sil found his thoughts returning constantly to his childhood friend, not out of affection but out of profound confusion. He confided in Kaisa that he still couldn’t understand the matter of the missing letters-- for all his father’s shortcomings, he refused to believe that Sohleh himself might be deceiving him. Deception was Almalexia’s sphere and the habit of Mournhold; Sohleh could be obsequious, irritating, and, on his worst days, cowardly, but he was also as devoted to his family as Sil was, and for all the time Sil had known him, even his cruelest acts had been motivated by nothing less than a sound belief in the greater good. Kaisa’s response to this assessment was light mocking and a firm insistence that there was no reason for Almalexia to be complicit in the deception at all, to which Sotha Sil pointed out that Almalexia had lied about Chemua staying in Mournhold, so something must be amiss. 

“Sil, be honest with me.” Kaisa finally asked, blunt. “Is she your lover?” 

The question was so unexpected that it took him several seconds to answer. “... Don’t tell Serlyn,” he said sheepishly. 

Kaisa burst into raucous laughter. “Oh, brother!” she cackled. “Don’t you get it? There’s no political conspiracy here. You’re just  _ jealous _ .” 

“Jealous?” 

“Yes, jealous! You think there’s something going on between her and the Jarl and you’re more heated than a bull kagouti.” 

“That’s not true at all!” Sotha Sil replied indignantly. “It’s only casual, we’re barely more than friends, so I wouldn’t care if she-- Anyway, she wouldn’t! Not with him, at least-- Kaisa, stop laughing at me!” 

But nothing Sotha Sil said, blushing and insistent, could save him from his little sister’s mockery, and by the time Kaisa left him to go about his daily errands, he felt thoroughly foolish about everything. 

The day was warm and muggy, making the forest that hugged the shoreline seem vivid as emeralds, and the air smelt strongly of salt, with heady tropical flowers in bloom.The lagoon was so still that it reflected the towering white clouds above it; everything was bright and illuminated, so rich and abundant with pleasant sensation that his current worries seemed small and trifling in comparison. Perhaps Kaisa was right, Sotha Sil thought to his own humiliation. Perhaps he  _ had  _ been jealous-- the idea that his angst had such a selfish aspect was a guilty one, but one he forced himself to consider nonetheless. Almalexia hiding an affair with the Jarl was more likely than her being enmeshed in some elaborate plot to ruin his family’s life, logically speaking. The possibility was simultaneously reassuring and deeply unpleasant.

However, he’d hardly settled into this unpleasant rumination when a whiff of bug-musk disturbed his thoughts, and a gentle voice roused him: “Sotha Sil, what a coincidence.”

Sotha Sil immediately rose to his feet. “Serjo Dagoth!” he cried out, hastening to bow and smoothing the sand from his robes as he did-- he felt his face go hot, as if Voryn had somehow caught him doing something indecent. “I just, ah--”

“Forgive me, I didn’t mean to startle you--”

“Not at all, not at all. What can I do for you?” 

When Sotha Sil glanced up, he saw that Voryn was handsome as ever that day, dressed in the dark elaborate robes of his House despite the summer heat. His demeanour was stiff, however, and he appeared distinctly uncomfortable, as if he’d been dragged to a party where he knew no-one. “I hoped we could speak,” he said, with a polite little smile that failed to reach his eyes. “In an unofficial capacity. As friends.” 

The request for informality startled Sil-- Voryn was not the sort of mer who started friendly conversations for his own leisure. “Is this about Vehk?” he asked, frowning.

“Walk along the beach with me,” came Voryn’s simple reply. 

So Sotha Sil, still slightly embarrassed, fell into step beside Voryn, and the two began to walk along the beach. Facing the ocean, the village was behind them and to their right, so they walked left, away from the settlement, towards a sheltered forest-fringed cove east of the village, formed by an old foyada jutting far into the ocean. 

“I’ve been hoping to speak to you for a while now,” Voryn started the conversation. “Not about Vehk, but about Mournhold. How is Almalexia?” 

Sotha Sil looked out over the ocean, trying to dispel the distinct feeling that Voryn had, in fact, been reading his mind. “Almalexia’s fine,” he replied awkwardly. “She’s doing well.” 

“That’s good.” Voryn hesitated. “... Your family has been very critical of her.” 

“Serlyn can be, ah, blunt.” Sil admitted. “Kaisa thinks he’s jealous. As for my father, I don’t think it’s just Almalexia. He’s been acting coldly towards me, too. I think the stress of the Divorce is affecting him, and he’s taking it out on us.” 

“Mm. But I’ve noticed that they seem to believe time on the mainland has…” Voryn waved his hands, “Diminished you, somehow.”

“Diminished?” 

“They have a contempt for mainlanders.” 

“Oh, not at all!” Sotha Sil objected immediately. “My family has excellent relations with Mournhold. Despite our relationship to House Telvanni, we’ve never been isolationists, and we’ve happily interacted with the mainland since our founding.” 

“That’s not what I’ve…” Voryn exhaled, glancing away. “Maybe so. But anti-Mainlander sentiment isn’t exactly uncommon on Vvardenfell.”

“Among the Dwemer and the Ashlanders, certainly.” 

“Not only among them. Mordrin Hanin, especially, has fueled the flames of independence as of late. Even some of my own brothers have fallen prey to his isolationist rhetoric.” 

Sotha Sil looked to Voryn. “... Who is Mordrin Hanin?” 

The look Voryn gave Sotha Sil in return-- eyebrows arched in surprise-- and the look that followed, his delicate features collapsing into a heavy frown, made Sotha Sil’s heart rise to his throat. 

“As you know, Vvardenfell is a divided land.” Voryn began cautiously. His voice was measured, deliberately stripped of emotion, and he averted his eyes to the nearby forest as they walked. “There have always been those mer who have chosen to worship the House of Troubles, just as there have always been those Houses who choose to devote themselves to a Daedric patron instead of their ancestors. Mordrin Hanin leads a cult devoted to Mehrunes Dagon, a cult that’s been gaining substantial power in the north and east. He’s been, honestly, a major problem for House Dagoth.” 

Sotha Sil bit his tongue, looking out at the placid ocean. In the distance he could see a cliff-racer, wheeling slowly over the waves.

“Hanin’s cult has been subjugating other cults,” Voryn continued. “I mean to say, he’s been at war. Not openly, not in a way that would force House Dagoth’s hand, but he’s been at war. Villages destroyed here, shrines erected there. House Telvanni, too, has been contending with the menace. As to their extent we’re not yet certain, but they have bases all along Azura’s Coast, from Anudnabia to Tukushapal.” His voice lowered. “It was only a matter of time before they reached Bal Fell.” 

The tide was coming in, and Sotha Sil watched small waves topple against the shore. 

“House Dagoth didn’t come here to treat with House Sotha,” Voryn admitted. “I needed a pretense to meet House Telvanni in peace. Branora wasn’t here by accident-- Hanin drove her out of Vos well before Ysmir stepped foot in the area. My fear is that he’ll start recruiting the Minor Houses. House Marvani has already abandoned the Telvanni for his cause. When I heard that House Sotha was also abandoning them, I assumed...“ 

“What did you assume?” asked Sotha Sil quietly. 

“What’s a Telvanni?” asked a different voice.

The two mer turned around. Vehk had been trailing them, thusfar unnoticed; hir hair and hir dress were sopping wet, betraying hir former hiding-place, but ze beamed innocently up at them with no regard for hir own disarray. 

“You know the answer, I’ve told you before.” The child’s arrival had brought a small smile to Voryn’s typically-solemn face-- a smile that faded the moment Vehk’s attention shifted away from him. Sil caught the shift, but couldn’t comment, for Vehk was speaking: 

“A Telvanni is a house, right? And Sotha is a house. But I prefer the Sotha house, because that’s where I keep my treasures. They’re all in Seht’s room. The egg, too! I keep the egg in Seht’s room, so it’s safe. It can’t hatch yet, so I must protect it.” 

They had resumed walking throughout the conversation, and Voryn led them to an emperor parasol, at the base of which he sat down. Taking the cue, Sotha Sil sat next to him, and Vehk immediately dove into Sil’s lap, babbling as ze made hirself comfortable. “I’m going to teach the egg magic, too! Magic like Voryn does. He’s the best sorcerer ever! Seht, Seht, I cut my hand on a rock, but Voryn healed it right away! It doesn’t even hurt! See? Do you think the egg will hatch into a mage?”

Sotha Sil looked to Voryn Dagoth, whose only response to Vehk’s cryptic flattery was to don a polite smile, but Sil saw through it: there was a grim expression behind his eyes, and his body was tense.

Sotha Sil was not the only one who noticed Voryn’s strange mood, for Vehk turned around, staring at him with obvious concern. “What’s wrong?” ze asked anxiously. “Did I do something?” 

“Not at all, Vehk.” Voryn’s voice was gentle as could be. “You didn’t do anything wrong. I was just… wondering if you could tell Sil what you told me earlier. About the night you went to live with the dreugh.” 

Vehk grew so still, so quiet, that Sotha Sil immediately embraced hir and opened his mouth to scold Voryn for bringing up the upsetting topic, but Vehk spoke first: “Must I…?” 

“Please,” Voryn said firmly. “This is important.” 

Before Sotha Sil could object, Vehk had already begun speaking. “One day the netchiman’s wife… me… I was sitting at home,” ze recounted, hir voice flat and detached. “And then a tall spirit came in and I heard him talking to my husband. And, um… they… the spirit said we had to leave. Because serjo Dagon didn’t like my husband, and the spirit said, he said that my husband and me are evil and bad, and if we didn’t run, the spirit said he’d--” Ze broke off with a yelp, burying hir face in hir hands. “Sorry. I’m sorry.”

“You’re doing wonderfully.” Voryn reached over and touched Vehk’s back, which seemed to give hir strength. “Go on.”

“The spirit said all this,” Vehk continued, “And my husband was angry. So he took the netchiman’s wife and went to the shrine and, the whole village, he called, he… there…” A strong shudder went through hir. “It was the spirit’s fault, because he made my husband angry, he shouldn’t have… but then, since he said, then we, he…” 

Then ze let out a sharp cry, turning and seizing Sotha Sil by the shirt, tugging at the fabric with such frantic urgency that Sil couldn’t help but recoil. “I can’t! I can’t, I can’t tell you this, Seht!” 

“Why?” Sotha Sil uttered, grasping at hir hands. “Calm down!” 

“I can’t tell you,” ze shouted. “The spirit’s here, the spirit’s going to take everyone to the shrine if I tell--” 

“Nobody will send you away,” Sotha Sil protested, his own voice edging towards panic. “Vehk--” 

But Vehk had burst into tears. “Cause the spirit’s here, he’s tricking you, he’ll hurt you too, but you don’t see it because you call him father!” 

With that ze flung hirself into Sotha Sil again and buried hir face in his shoulder, sobbing inconsolably. Sotha Sil squeezed hir tight, trying to soothe hir even as ze quaked with fear, and looked up to Voryn, speechless. 

“I don’t understand,” Sotha Sil began slowly. “My father? But-- no, you must be mistaken…” 

Voryn’s grim stare and Vehk’s weeping, left no room for argument. Sotha Sil closed his eyes.

“Father was on Bal Fell,” Sotha Sil whispered. 

“Vehk believes so,” Voryn agreed, voice heavy.

“He met Vehk’s… Vehk’s netchiman.” 

“So it appears.” 

“And he must’ve known it was destroyed by daedra. He knew everything. He lied to me.” Sotha Sil looked to Voryn helplessly. “Why?”

Voryn averted his eyes. “Why, indeed,” he murmured. Then he sighed and reached out, touching Vehk-- who was still sobbing hysterically against Sil’s shoulder-- on the back. “Let me take them.”

Sotha Sil didn’t protest as Voryn pulled the child into his own arms. Vehk, too, didn’t protest; though ze wept still, ze simply leaned into Voryn, as if having resigned hirself to whatever might happen. 

“Where are you going?” ze asked, sniffling, as Sotha Sil rose to his feet. 

Sotha Sil replied simply, “I’m going to drive a spirit from the shrine.” 

The walk home seemed to stretch on forever. The world now seemed far too bright; every peal of laughter was clear and sharp, the sunlight that pierced the blindingly white clouds seared his skin. Only the Shrine, rising slowly above the huts as he approached it, seemed to hold the appropriate grimness for Sotha Sil’s mood, looming as if it were a broken tooth before the village. Finally, Sil saw Ald Sotha as Vehk must have seen it all this time: an unsuspecting sacrifice, lying prone beneath a Daedric dagger. 

Considering Sohleh’s previous caginess, Sil didn’t expect to find him at the shrine-- he had somehow, in his tormented thoughts, expected that he would be forced to summon his own father like an errant atronach-- alas, Sohleh was there, standing in a shady alcove and speaking with Kaisa. Both of them glanced up when Sil approached, and both broke into sincere grins, but Sil’s distress must have been obvious in his face, for those grins were quickly replaced by troubled frowns. 

Kaisa addressed it first: “Sil,” she said with worry. “What’s wrong? You look like--”

“I’ve been speaking to Voryn,” Sil said, staring hard at his father’s face. 

Sohleh turned his eyes downwards, inhaled deeply, and then turned to Kaisa with an amiable smile. “Kohti, dear, go find your mother and let her know what you’ve decided, won’t you?” 

“What did Voryn say?” Kaisa asked, eyebrows raised. “Is it about Vehk?” She looked to Sil, who only shook his head, and then to Sohleh, who maintained a pained smile. With an aggravated sigh she threw her hands in the air. “Men’s business, then! Fah! Fine, but I’m telling Serlyn everything.” And, clearly offended, the young woman stalked off. 

“Sil,” Sohleh said gently. “Are you well? What did--” 

“Who is Mordrin Hanin?” asked Sil. 

Sohleh’s reaction betrayed everything. “Who is--” he sputtered, “I-- I mean, I haven’t heard the name before! Who is Mordrin Hanin? Has someone come to Ald Sotha?” Before Sil could reply to that, Sohleh’s eyes cut a glance around them. “But your face is red,” he pointed out in a thin voice. “Let’s get you out of the sun, come along, you must have been dazed by the summer’s heat. Surely that’s the cause of your strange mood. You know how the sun addles the mind…” 

Furious as Sil was, urgent as his protests felt, he allowed his father to lead him away from blindingly beautiful Ald Sotha and into the dark basement of the Shrine. 

Beneath the earth, an ancient foyada, since closed in, provided a dry chamber within the lagoonside’s boggy ground, and this chamber now served as the inner sanctum of the Sotha line-- it was their meeting-place, their respite from the heat and from the trials of their days, connected to the world above by a narrow spiraling staircase. It had been a refuge in Sil’s youth, the site of many a cozy evening, but as they ventured downwards, he could only wonder whether Vehk had seen this, too-- his father leading him down into the dark. 

The basement of the shrine was cool even in summer. It maintained the walls of the original chamber: coarse basalt, whose irregularities still caught the pale cyan light of the many magika-sconces which illuminated the space. Tapestries in rich red and black hung over concave gaps, while in other places tall bookshelves, crammed with tomes and trinkets, lined the walls This was their family’s sanctum, not intended for outsider eyes, so it was somewhat cluttered and untidy in accordance with the family’s scattered whims. As Sil descended into the room, he looked it over, as if seeking some hint of deceit among the treasured setting, but the sitting-area with its low table and cushions were innocuous as ever, and Sohleh’s small open study with its desk and curios bore no sign of betrayal. The large statue of Azura that stood over a small family altar, opposite the staircase, offered no opinion of the situation, but stared down at the two with the ghost of a smile on her stone lips. 

They reached the end of the staircase. Sohleh walked forwards to the base of the shrine, while Sotha Sil remained rooted in place. Sohleh turned around; the two eyed each other with open hostility, no trace of familial love left between them. 

“Who is Mordrin Hanin?” Sil broke the silence.

In the dim magelight Sohleh’s eyes glinted blue. “I don’t know, Sil,” he shot back, “You tell me. Who  _ is  _ Mordrin Hanin?” 

“Voryn says he’s a Daedra worshiper that’s been gaining territory in the Grazelands.” Sil spoke calmly, though it took great effort. “I’ve been told he even pushed Branora out of Vos. It’s strange that you wouldn’t be aware of her troubles.”

Sohleh seemed unfazed. “Well, we aren’t divorcing them because they’ve been abundantly honest with us.” 

“I also found it interesting,” Sotha Sil continued, “That Hanin is apparently responsible for the destruction of several villages across Vvardenfell.”

“Alas,” said Sohleh, “Life is hard on Vvardenfell.”

Sil took a few steps closer to the altar, keeping his eyes on Sohleh’s face. “Voryn even suggested that Hanin might move south. That he’s already conquered most of Azura’s coast.” 

“Unlikely,” replied Sohleh without emotion. “Azura’s Coast is well-defended, resilient! The Telvanni fleet--”

“He thinks Hanin could’ve made it as far as Bal Fell.” 

“Bal Fell was destroyed by the Nords.” 

“So you say.” 

The two, father and son, regarded each other for a long moment. Sohleh’s face was stony, his jaw tight and mouth pulled into a grimace; Sotha Sil matched his gaze, trying to keep the emotion from his face, though his heart was racing and an irritating trembling had crept into his hands. Unthinking, he shoved his hands into his pockets, to hide the momentary weakness. 

He watched Sohleh look to his hands, and he watched concern cross his father’s face. Sotha Sil had been sickly as a child, and so often he’d seen that expression appear at any little tremble that might betray a deeper issue. 

“Unless,” Sohleh began, still with that gentle expression, raising his gaze to meet Sotha Sil’s again. “You don’t believe… yes, Sil, perhaps that’s it!” He smiled, extending a hand. “Perhaps this Hanin has enlisted Nordic mercenaries in his ambitions, which is why my fishermen thought it was the Nords who were responsible. And you say Hanin is a daedra cultist? Perhaps that explains the current state of the island… finally, an explanation for that horrible event!”

He said it with such benevolence, so warmly in contrast to the anger they’d shared both moments before, that Sil found himself momentarily at a loss for words, unable to continue the argument with nothing to argue against. 

His father was offering him a way out, Sil realized. Like a nobleman excusing his favourite son for some childish jape, rescuing him from inconvenient consequences, Sohleh was trying to pardon him for his crime of curiosity. Sil stared at Sohleh’s extended hand.

“... It would make sense,” Sotha Sil confessed. “That’s what I thought.” 

“Yes, of course it would!” Sohleh agreed eagerly. 

“And so I wanted to believe it. But then… who was altering my letters? And why?” 

“It must be Almalexia, as part of some plot--”

“But what interest would she have in deceiving me, if not to protect the Nords?” 

“The hearts of women are strange--” 

“Why would she want to conceal the destruction of Bal Fell from me?” 

“To keep you by her side, perhaps?” Sohleh shook his head. “No doubt she knows of your great loyalty and your love for your House, and she knew you are a dutiful son who would surely fly home, if he knew Ald Sotha were threatened by the cultists of Mehrunes Dagon!” 

The magelights around the room seemed too bright at that moment, the air too thick to breathe, Azura’s stare mocking, and Sotha Sil’s voice broke as he replied, “But Vehk said the cultists served Molag Bal.” 

A deathly silence fell between them. Sotha Sil’s throat felt tight, but the trembling of his hand had turned into something more resolute, magika coursing along his fingers as if in preparation for a hostile spell. Sohleh’s face was still, shocked, his shoulders slumping, and the two stared at each other, both speechless. 

“Who is Mordrin Hanin?” Sil asked again. 

“That despicable little scamp!” Sohleh exclaimed. “Why--” 

“Father! Who is Mordrin Hanin?”

“How dare you question me! What purpose--” 

“Why did Vehk see you at Bal Fell?” 

“You really trust the memory of a child of six? At that age--” 

“Is that how old ze was?” Sil had pulled his hands from his pockets as he spoke, his voice rising, magika pooling in his palms. “Ze was six when it happened? How would you know!” 

“Agh!” Sohleh turned his face away. “Sil, for the love of Azura, enough of this!” 

“Who destroyed Bal Fell?” 

“You have defied me long enough!” 

“Is Hanin Vehk’s father?” 

“No! Azura, no, Hanin is no such monster!” 

“So you  _ do  _ know him!”

“Yes! Yes, fine, I know Hanin! Unlike you, Sil, I have been loyal to Ald Sotha, loyal enough to do what was needed!”

The both of them had their hands raised, destruction magic crackling in their palms; at the final sentence, however, Sil’s will broke. His arms fell to his side, and he turned away, unable to so much as look at him. 

“Oh, gods,” Sotha Sil uttered, pressing both hands over his mouth.

“You dare to judge me?” Sohleh demanded of him. “It is thanks to Hanin that your siblings didn’t suffer the fate of that wretched orphan! When the Telvanni turned up their noses at us, it was Hanin who came to our aid against the agents of Molag Bal! Hanin  _ saved  _ us!” 

“Did you know?” Sotha Sil asked. “Did you know what happened--”

“Did I have any idea what practices were being committed on that aisle?” Sohleh replied, his voice harsh with disgust. “Of course not! No, I had no idea, not until Hanin came to me and offered to take care of it.” 

“But he’s a Dagon worshiper!” 

“A far lesser evil than Molag Bal! And he was here when no-one else was. Not you, not the Telvanni--” 

“Oh, gods,” Sil uttered in horror, “Father, did you aid him against the Telvanni?”

“Oblivion, no!” 

“But you must realize how bad this would look! Oh, by the words, father, if House Telvanni finds out about this, they would demand revenge. They would wipe us from the face of Nirn!” 

“You think I don’t realize that!” Sohleh’s own righteous anger had given way to agitation, and he stepped away, waving his arms to emphasize his words. “Why do you think I tried to keep you away? You’re too meddlesome for your own good, Sil, too interfering! All would have been fine if you’d only stayed in Mournhold!” 

“You were lying about the letters,” Sotha Sil realized aloud, voice weak. 

“Of course I was! Altering your letters, how preposterous-- how would anyone find the time or the means?” Sohleh uttered a small laugh, shaking his head, as if he were as perplexed by this situation as much as Sil was. “You should’ve known better. I think Mournhold has made you paranoid.” 

All at once, Sotha Sil felt as if his legs would no longer support him. He walked over to the statue of Azura and promptly slumped against it, resting on the pedestal near the flowing edge of her skirt. His head was spinning, he found that he couldn’t quite think-- he bowed his head, pressing his hands to his face with a soft groan of despair. 

“My son…” Sohleh drew closer to him, his voice gentle once more. “I’m so proud of you. Do you know that? Despite our argument, I have nothing but pride in you. You have a wonderful mind and a noble heart, but-- curse this land-- a wonderful mind and noble heart are grave weaknesses sometimes! I tried to keep you away for your own sake. I knew you would wish to fix things, that you would be troubled by this all, I knew you would despair.” 

“I should have been here,” Sotha Sil said aloud. He was addressing himself, not Sohleh, and he kept his hands over his face. “I could have prevented this. I should have been here--” 

“That’s not true. My son, not everything in this world can be solved by you.” 

Sohleh placed his hand on Sil’s shoulder, but Sil flinched, shoving him away. He stepped back, staring at Sohleh in horror. “I should have been here,” he repeated.

Sohleh made an irritated sound, his gentle demeanor lapsing. “Insolent child!” 

“I should have been here,” Sil repeated firmly. “And I’m not leaving. I’m going to fix this.” 

“And how do you propose to fix it?” Sohleh asked the question with a measure of sarcasm.

“We’ll accept the offer from House Dagoth.” Sotha Sil said. “We’ll cut all ties with Hanin, reaffirm our devotion to Azura, and focus on reclaiming Bal Fell. Who else knows about Hanin?” 

“Nobody else--”

“Father.” 

Sohleh looked away, sighing. “Serlyn,” he admitted reluctantly, “Serlyn has been close in contact with Hanin’s agents.” 

Sil grimaced-- the image of his little brother, his arrogant, reckless, cynical, deep-thinking, emotional brother, clad in the robes of Mehrunes Dagon, flashed before his eyes. “Is that all?” he demanded. “Only Serlyn?” 

“Yes, of course! Your mother and sister share your damned idealism.”

“Alright.” Sotha Sil took a deep breath. “Alright. Here’s how we fix this: You’ll renounce Hanin, and Serlyn will renounce him. You’ll make me Second Councillor, and include me in all decisions from now on. We’ll tell Voryn Dagoth we’ll become banner-House to House Dagoth. We’ll reclaim Bal Fell, show Vvardenfell we mean to counter this threat, too. Mother and Kaisa don’t need to know about this. Nobody has to know about this, but I never want you to lie to me again!”

“And what of Mournhold?” Sohleh asked with spite. “What of Almalexia?”

“Almalexia doesn’t need me,” Sotha Sil replied. “I’m needed  _ here _ . I’m needed by my family! How could I dream of going back to Mournhold-- how could I let myself be away for so long?” 

His voice had cracked as he said it, and he bowed his head, biting his lip hard to try and hide that tears had come to his eyes. All those times he’d told himself that he wasn’t needed in Ald Sotha, that he could pursue his own selfish desires in Mournhold, came crashing down on him then; if he had seen through Sohleh’s deception, none of this would have happened. If he had seen through Sohleh’s deception, he could’ve returned here with Vehk, driven Hanin away himself, and prevented this whole terrible ordeal. 

The display of emotion broke Sohleh, too. “My son!” he uttered. “I… How ashamed of me you are. Have I truly done something so bad? No, you’re right. Your mother, Kaisa, nobody needs to know of this! We keep it a secret. I accept your offer. I truly… words can’t begin to describe the shame I feel. I was only trying to do the right thing, help people… would you not do the same?” 

“I guess we shall see,” replied Sotha Sil hollowly. “For I’m never leaving here again.” 

*** 

It was late that night when Vehk found Sotha Sil. He had retreated to the ocean-side, the customary sanctum of his youth, to contemplate all that had happened; as the sun set and the sky filled with stars, he remained perched on the edge of the dock, staring out into the pale silvery surface of the sea. The child approached him silently and sat down, cross-legged, at some distance from him; Sotha Sil glanced at hir but said nothing, soon returning his gaze to the ocean, and Vehk didn’t utter a word. 

The two sat in silence, in the darkness, for a long time. 

“I’m sorry,” Vehk finally said, voice small. 

“You have nothing to apologise for,” Sotha Sil replied. 

“But I told you about the spirit and you got upset.” Vehk’s voice was shaky. “I shouldn’t have told. I was told not to tell. He’s your father. It’s all my fault.” 

Sotha Sil sighed. “It’s not your fault, Vehk, it’s my father’s. Don’t eat his sins.” 

“What does that mean?”

“It’s an Ashlander saying. To eat someone’s sins is to take responsibility for something bad they’ve done.” 

“Oh… I won’t, then.” 

They fell into silence once more. Sotha Sil kept his eyes on the distant horizon, where fluffy moon-illuminated clouds swallowed the multitudes of stars. 

It was a long time before Vehk broke the silence, hir voice cracking, on the verge of tears:

“But I have done something wrong!” ze cried. “I keep getting in trouble. I keep getting hurt. Everything’s bad, it’s my fault, I caused it. I’m bad. I feel bad. Seht, I…” 

Sotha Sil looked back at hir. Ze was curled into a tight ball, and hir expression was full of fear.

“Am I bad?” ze asked timidly. 

Sotha Sil frowned, and shook his head. “You aren’t bad.” 

“Are you sure?” 

“I’m certain of it.” 

“Then why do I feel so bad?” 

Sotha Sil thought long and hard before he finally gave his answer: 

“You’re an egg.” 

Vehk’s face, glinting wet from hir tears, crinkled into a confused frown. “An egg?” 

“As my grandmother said, remember? You’re still a child.” Sotha Sil kept his eyes on the horizon, where, far to the south, across the sea, the Mainland and all its treacheries lurked. “I know things seem bad right now, but it won’t be this way forever. You’ll learn, you’ll grow, you’ll do incredible things one day. No matter how broken everything seems right now, it’s not forever. You can’t judge anything by the egg it hatches from. You just have to wait until it hatches. And that’s what we have to do… we’ll wait, and grow, and know that things will be okay in the end.” 

“I’m an egg,” Vehk repeated in a murmur.

“That’s right.”

“Or… I’m not an egg. Not me.” Ze crawled over to Sotha Sil, then, leaning against his side. “I’m just a netchiman’s wife. But there’s an egg inside of me… that’s Vehk. That’s who I’ll be one day. I won’t let anything happen to him. I’ll keep him safe. Ayem ae Sehti ae Vehk.”

Sotha Sil didn’t reply, and Vehk didn’t speak after that. They simply sat in silence and watched the moons sink below the beautiful horizon. 

***

This room had once belonged to someone else. 

Almalexia did not know who possessed Chemua’s chambers before the Nords came. They must have been important, for the room was massive, but not too important, for its only windows were small and set high in the ceiling. The room must have been strikingly Velothi once; triangle in shape, the northmost half of the room was dominated by an elevated square platform around a metre high, whose corner jutted towards the door in the broad southern wall. Short stairways connected this platform-- used as a sleeping-space-- to the lower portion of the chambers, which were reserved for living-activities, such as dining and hosting company. The earliest Chimer had been oddly adverse to constructing rooms with four corners. 

The protruding corner of the elevated platform effectively divided the living-space into two. Almalexia couldn’t fathom how the original owner of the chambers must have put that divide to use, for the Nords had furnished and occupied it so thoroughly by these latter days that it seemed to exist for their designs alone. If one stood in the doorway, they would see to the left a comfortable reading room and a rudimentary library, while to the right sat an area for dining, with a small table and shelves of Skyrim liquor among clay crockery. The reading-room was cozy and closed in, containing, alongside several bookshelves furnished with books and a couch for reclining, a small shrine in the corner, before which a meditation-mat was placed. The ceiling of this room was very high and pointed, so it wasn’t stuffy even in summer. A late-season storm had descended on Mournhold that day, so the light from the windows was feeble. No servant had yet been in to light the braziers and the chambers were dim. 

Whoever had once owned the room must have been fiercely proud of it, but nothing of them remained on Nirn. They had been killed in the invasion over a century ago, and their worldly presence washed away in the wake of heavy spruce furniture and a bearskin rug. 

Almalexia sat on the couch, her legs stretched out with her bare feet on a pillow, her eyes focused on the shrine without truly seeing it. She held a cup of mead, taken from the dining-area, but she hardly touched it. She’d placed a sheaf of papers on the nearest shelf but she didn’t look at them. In the hours leading up to this she’d considered bringing a weapon, and among the thousands of scenarios she’d imagined for this moment, she’d indulged herself with memories of Fenja, bloodied below her, but instead of Fenja the corpse had blue eyes and rust-coloured hair and sharp features with a scowl that could wither flesh. 

In the end she’d decided against bringing a weapon. She doubted a knife would solve anything now. 

The shrine was dusty and unlavish; Chemua was not religious, not that she knew of, at least. It held a bear-skull, a few trophies from what few victories were held by a young Jarl living a politician’s gloriless life. Almalexia would have been confused as to why Chemua kept this shrine to his own mediocracy, were it not for the plain meditation-mat that sat before it.

The previous Jarl had once told her that wielding the thu’um required a great deal of meditation. Why did they meditate? The Jarl had said that the thu’um was a conversational art, that a Tongue must learn to persuade the very bones of the earth of what to do. He had said that the Nords were given unique domination over Nirn with their powers, their Voices. He had said the Nords had once been slaves to dragons, until they learned to Speak-Right, and their speech had been their freedom, and from then on they alone understood the power of a carefully spoken word. It had seemed glorious at the time-- if only the right word were spoken, what couldn’t be accomplished?

Almalexia had never heard of a Chimer learning to wield the thu’um, though she herself had, as a child, dreamed of following Chemua to distant Throat-of-the-World when he went off to learn the art as a boy. How different her life might have turned out, if she were born a Nord and given the gift of powerful speech. Perhaps she could conjure the word that would convince the Indorils not to give up on their resistance, a word that would steel Nam’s soul and turn her kin away from capitulation to the Nordic whim. Maybe there was a word that could rally her Shouts back to her side, persuade them that Heigl’s fate would not await them, too. Perhaps there was a Shout that would summon Sotha Sil back to her. But she was Chimer, and, unlike the fortunate Nords, their goddess would never bestow them with some magic power to break the shackles of their slavers. Compared to Kyne, Boethiah was not so merciful. 

With the heavy creak of wood the door behind her opened. A rectangle of light fell over the shrine. 

“You’re going to deny Hoaga,” Almalexia said aloud. 

The sound of heavy footfalls echoed through the air as Chemua came close to the couch. “No.” 

“It wasn’t a request.”

“I know.” 

Almalexia raised the cup of mead to her lips and drained it. She’d thought the alcohol would steady her nerves; instead it made her shake. 

She had meant to assert her demands, but plans seemed distant now. “Why did you kill Heigl?” she asked quietly instead. 

“You killed Fenja.” Chemua said it calmly, conversational, as he came to stand near the couch.

Almalexia put down the empty cup. She inhaled deeply, stood, and rose to face him.

“Deny Hoaga,” she repeated herself. She was shorter than Chemua, and she had to crane her neck back to meet his gaze. “Forget about this tribute. Withdraw from the war and call your retinue from the fields.” 

Chemua looked down on her, and in contrast to her anger his expression was impossibly, infuriatingly calm. “And if I don’t?” 

“Then I will challenge you to a trial by combat, and I will kill you.” 

The corners of his lips twitched upwards. “You think you can defeat me?” When she did not waver, he breathed a single word--  _ fus _ \-- it hit her like a blow, causing her to stagger back. 

She regained her footing, squared her shoulders, and fixed a defiant glare at his face. “You could not kill me without causing riots,” she said. “The people love me. Deny Hoaga.” 

“So let them riot,” Chemua replied. “I’ll put them down.” He took a step towards her, then, mouth widening in an unsettling smile. “But I could save myself the trouble and convince them that you’re on my side. You have precious few friends, they’ve all deserted you or died, hm? It’s only you and I here, if I were to say the tribute was your idea, well...”

“Nobody would believe you! The Shouts are loyal to me, my counsellors know me, they would vouch for me. You’re bluffing. Deny Hoaga.”

“Your Shouts hate you for getting Heigl killed. Your wizard hates you so much that he left.” 

A small tremor went through Almalexia, but she forced down her anger. 

She changed her approach. Chemua was standing close to her, but rather than back away, she adopted as casual a demeanour as she could, with an amiable smile and her hands clasped behind her back. “Very well,  _ thuri _ .” She spoke warmly and easily, though her voice quivered. “Is it money you seek? House Indoril has plenty. Hoaga need not know, we could make it well worth your while to lie to him.” 

“I’m the Jarl. I’ve enough money.” 

“Slaves, then?” she pressed. “Or perhaps a wife? A husband, if that’s more to your taste? I’m well connected, I could find you anyone.”

“I’m not interested in marriage.” 

“A new Hold? More territory? A Daedric artefact?” Almalexia’s voice had grown thin. “Anything. Just name your price, I’ll do anything.”

Chemua’s smile had broadened as Almalexia spoke, becoming a wide, amused grin, until her last pleading offer-- and he laughed in her face. 

Her composure broke. “You bastard!” Almalexia exclaimed, and she surged forwards, ramming both hands into his chest. “Deny Hoaga!” 

“I won’t.”

“ _ Damn  _ you!”

“Damn me.” 

“You’ll kill them all!”

“So let them die.” Chemua was still as a wall, and his only response to Almalexia striking his chest was that infuriating smile. 

Enraged, Almalexia drew back from him, hands going to her side, by habit searching for a sword. “I won’t let you harm them! I will go to war with you, the Indorils and I, if it means this or starving. The very city will go to war with you!”

Laughter shook Chemua. “Good! Good, Almalexia, let them die on your behalf too, I’ve been wanting to battle some elves.” 

“Do not do this! I’ll do anything you want, give you anything you want, just do not do this! Deny Hoaga!” 

“You have nothing I want.”

“There must be something,  _ anything _ , I can do to make you have mercy!”

“There’s nothing. Don’t you understand?” 

“There must be something!” Almalexia’s voice broke in a hysterical, humourless laugh. “What if I slept with you? Is that enough for you, you heartless brute? So be it, you win! You can do what you want to me, just do not take the crops--” 

She couldn’t have said what happened in the next few seconds. Only that she found herself pinned back against the bookshelf, both wrists in Chemua’s hands, and Chemua himself very, very close, and no longer laughing. 

“But you do not understand,” he murmured, as if in awe. “Do you?”

Her voice wouldn’t come out as more than a whisper. “Let go of me.”

Chemua released one of her hands-- only to grab her hair and tug sharply, causing her to utter a cry as he pushed her towards the door. “Come,” he ordered, breathless and with his same amazed expression, “Come,  _ fahliil _ , I’ll make you understand.” 

“What are you going--” Almalexia began to ask, but then he was walking, his hand still about her wrist so tightly it could bruise. 

They walked together through the hall, Chemua’s pace so rapid that Almalexia nearly had to jog, for the painful grasp on her arm would not let her slow down for a moment. They sped past doors and tapestries and arches, past the main parts of the palace and towards the outer wall, up into a small guard’s annex that led to a watchtower on the north side. 

They went through a door and came to be outside; here, at the north of the palace, high in the roof, was a patio level with the nearby outer wall. This was where silt-striders would land to carry away nobles, and their platform was connected to the patio by a bridge. 

The storm had descended on Deshaan in full, and the air was thick with warm rain. A heavy moist wind bore down on them as Chemua pushed Almalexia across the bridge, she now clutching his arm for fear that they’d both be blown off of the slick walkway by the weather’s rage, or perhaps in some futile attempt to ease his grip. The both of them were breathless, they’d nearly run, and Chemua had not looked at her all the while.

They crossed to the edge of the outer wall, with only a narrow banister to prevent a fall. “Look,” breathed Chemua, pushing Almalexia towards that banister without releasing her. 

Before them spread the fields of Deshaan, great swathes of silver-blue wickwheat and golden saltrice, shimmering beneath a cascade of grey rain that seemed to move ever-sideways in gentle curtains. To the north were jagged mountains, dusky purple and indistinct in the downpour, and at the cusp of their foothills gentle rolling plains; to the west and east those plains extended as far as the eye could see, lush and green and rippling, wave-like, in the storm. The air smelt of ozone and electricity, but below that was the thick musk of crops, blown in on that easterly wind. All around them the rain lashed, but in the distance the clouds broke, and the strong summer sun broke through, casting its sparkling golden light over that fertile veridian sea. 

“What are you doing?” Almalexia asked above the pounding rain. 

Chemua inhaled deeply.

“What are you doing-- wait!” Almalexia tried to turn to him, turn away from the spectacular view before, but Chemua grabbed her hair and wrenched her gaze back towards the fields. The clouds were low, the rain glimmering like falling jewels as it fell over every single crop, every single corner of the lush land. The wind howled sonorously over the parapets. 

“Chemua, wait, just  _ wait. _ ” Almalexia felt him hold his breath, “Do not do this! Please, please  _ do not do this!  _ You cannot do this! I  _ forbid-- _ ”   
  


“ _ KRAS.  _  
  


_ AAR. _  
  


_ LOK.” _  
  


And Almalexia’s words were lost in the wake of the thu’um. 

The Shout unfurled like blood spilled in clear water: a great red plume appeared in the low-hanging stormclouds before them, spreading across the sky in a sluggish crimson stain. In seconds that seemed as heavy as years, that unnatural stain soaked into the very air, and where it touched, the rain turned dark and sickly as blood. The wind became acrid and hot, whipped up into a frenzy, and on its mold-scented back, a cascade of rust tumbled down across the plains of Deshaan.

Chemua was laughing, laughing and clutching Almalexia tight to himself; Almalexia herself could only slump against him and watch as the beautiful world before them wilted beneath the blight. 

“There,” said Chemua, seeming  _ giddy  _ from his excitement. “I’ve denied Hoaga, as you asked! Do you get it now, Almalexia? You do not control me!” 

“You bastard,” Almalexia whispered. “We’re going to starve!” 

“No. Your people will starve, perhaps, but you? I will make sure you grow fat and healthy, and as they hunger, your people will see how spoiled you are in my lap.” He held her still, with his hand tangled in her hair, but now he used that grip to press her face to his chest, fingers roaming about her neck. “Do you  _ understand?  _ Death is too good for you.” 

She did not realize he had kissed her until she was shoved away and dropped unceremoniously against the banister. Her legs gave out, and she turned from him, leaning hard against the ledge to support herself and staring, aghast, out at the tempest beyond. The air was acrid and volcanic, and her lips burned from drawing in breath. 

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Chemua was touching her again and she couldn’t bring herself to even move away. “I asked you a question, Almalexia. Do you understand?” 

She didn’t reply. The air had turned opaque and red, stinging her skin where the rain fell on it. The distant sunlight that had broken through the storm previously was swallowed.

“I said, do you understand?”

Almalexia swallowed. “I understand,” she said, hoarse, and drew in a breath that burned her lungs. “I understand.” 

“Good.” 

He released her and she went back to the edge of the banister, staring, transfixed, out at the fields. The air was toxic, nearly too thick to breathe, as if a Vvardenfell ash-storm had settled over Mournhold. Within minutes the world had grown dark; the verdant crops had turned a muddy brown, the rain that fell over them blackened. So drastic it seemed, so absurd, that she wondered whether this wasn’t some illusion, whether something so awful could happen at all. 

“Don’t stay out here for too long.” Chemua sounded annoyed, and Almalexia felt his hand on her again, briefly. “You’ll make yourself sick. Go explain to the Chimer what destruction you’ve caused. Then, go back to my chambers. We have… much to discuss, you and I.” 

Almalexia didn’t watch him leave. She could only stare out at the world-- stare north--, still as a statue, as the blight descended over everything.

At some point in touching her, Chemua had dislodged a note in her pocket, and now the corner of the parchment stuck into her bare skin. Almalexia pulled it out and held it up to the soiled air. She had received it this morning; it was a single sheet, bearing only a few lines of Sotha Sil’s handwriting, unsigned but dearly familiar: 

_ Almalexia, I hereby resign my position as your counselor and will not be returning to Mournhold.  _

A rejection that bore no explanation and no argument. Whatever happened now, she would be facing it alone. 

Almalexia crushed the note in her palm and returned to the palace. 

* * *

_Then Seht came to the netchiman's wife and said:_

_'I am the Clockwork King of the Three in One. In you is an egg of my brother-sister, who possesses invisible knowledge of words and swords, which you shall nurture until the Hortator comes.'_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, as always, to Lena for beta'ing: check out her fic at https://fountain-of-forgetfulness.com/!


End file.
